ImgTec 发布第二代 Series5XT GPU。

Edison

POWERVR SGX544MP

Imagination has also launched a new GPU design today. The POWERVR SGX544MP is the second member of the Series5XT family to be announced, which differentiates itself from the vanilla Series5 family by incorporating the second generation of Imagination's Universal Scalable Shader Engine (see diagrams below).

While the SGX544MP is only DirectX9 capable, as opposed to the DX10.1 SGX5SGX545 launched at CES earlier this year, the key difference in the implementation of this GPU is its multi-processor capability. The four-pipe core is scalable up to 16 cores.

"This latest core builds on the success of our MP technology, which already has five licensees and is set to deliver new levels of embedded graphics capabilities to millions of users over the next few years," said King-Smith.

"SGX544 extends the Series5XT line to push the upper boundaries of performance in power and cost-constrained embedded environments, while building on our unrivalled portfolio of APIs across every significant embedded and desktop operating system."

Imagination Technologies GPUs can be found in many Intel Atom chips, including Moorestown, and we suspect they make an appearance in the Apple A4. TI licensed the SGX530 GPU for its OMAP 3430 SoC - as found in phones like the Nokia N900 and the Motorola Milestone. The dual-core (ARM Cortex A9) OMAP 4 series will use the SGX540 GPU when it eventually arrives.

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Edison

另外还发布了 S3D。

UK low-power graphics designer Imagination Technologies picked the British Embassy in South Korea to demonstrate, for the first time, that its POWERVR SGX embedded graphics cores are capable of delivering stereoscopic 3D (S3D) graphics.

Like ARM, Imagination's business model requires it to persuade SoC designers to license its designs and integrate them into their chips. The big difference between Imagination and ARM is that the latter's primary focus is on the CPU rather than GPU, and the two companies even used to cooperate with each other until ARM launched its Mali graphics designs.

Accordingly Imagination not only needs to demonstrate superiority to Mali but, on behalf of SoC partners like TI, superiority to chips like Qualcomm's Snapdragon and NVIDIA's Tegra, which develop their graphics cores in-house.

The timing of this demonstration seems to be especially pointed at NVIDIA, which chose to focus primarily on 3D - albeit on PCs rather than mobile devices - at the recent Computex show. Presumably NVIDIA will eventually want to talk-up the 3D capabilities of Tegra too, and Imagination seems to have beaten it to the punch.

"The additional workload required for S3D places significant additional demands on the graphics processor - and POWERVR SGX is more than up to the task," said marketing VP Tony King-Smith. "Given that the performance demands are significantly higher for S3D than conventional 3D applications, we felt it important to show our technology delivering full S3D experiences today using currently shipping silicon.

"As a result of our demonstrations we look forward to seeing S3D as another key feature used by a broader base of applications for mobile phones, DTVs, STBs and other products in the next few years."