ARM
has announced its second generation GPU (graphics processing unit) designs.
It says the T-600 series architecture offers a 50%
performance boost which could help smartphones and tablets run more
graphics-intense video games and run photo editing programmes faster. ARM
says the first products using the tech should launch by September
2013. ARM dominates the market in mobile device CPU (central processing
unit) designs, but is a
smaller player when it comes to GPUs. Another British firm - Imagination
Technologies - is currently the major force in the mobile graphics
sector. Neither ARM nor Imagination build anything themselves, but instead
make money by licensing their intellectual properties to manufacturers who
combine them with other technologies to create the chips that power mobile
devices.
ARM vs
Imagination
ARM says more than one in five Android
smartphones have graphics processors using its technology, including Samsung's
best-selling Galaxy S3. By contrast a study by Jon Peddie Research
suggests Imagination's technology was used in half of all graphics chips shipped to make smart mobile
devices in 2011, including the chips in Apple's iPads and
iPhones. ARM hopes to gain on its rival, saying that its CPU and GPU
technologies benefit from the fact they have been designed to work
together. "The challenge as we move forward with more complex
processors - both CPU and GPU - is that the interaction between the two becomes
much more critical," Kevin Smith, ARM's vice president of strategic
marketing told the BBC. "It's
about putting the right processing task on the right CPU or GPU, and ultimately
that is about extending battery life for consumers and staying within the power
budgets that mobile devices require."
'Revolutionary'
compression
Games consoles, such as the Playstation
3 and Xbox 360, have historically been able to show more advanced graphics than
smartphones and tablets because they have been able to use more power-hungry
chips. But the quality gap has shrunk as mobile device GPUs have become more
energy efficient. ARM plans to catch up, and perhaps even overtake, the current
generation of consoles by adopting a new data compression technology it created
called ASTC (adaptive scalable texture compression). The firm says ASTC
is a "revolutionary" new algorithm -
or set of instructions - that will allow software designers to use the same
amount of data to describe more image detail than had been possible before, or
to use less data to provide the same amount of detail. It covers a wide range
of formats including both 2D and 3D images, as well as HDR (high dynamic range) photographs. "From
the consumer's point of view it's going to mean better battery life and higher
image quality," said Steve Steele, product manager of ARM's media
processing division. "Texture compression is important because moving data
about costs energy, so by moving less data about your battery lasts longer. "You
will be able to download games faster, and it's also been designed to be more
efficient at uncompressing data once it's on your device."While ARM's new
GPU designs are the first to use ASTC, the firm hopes it will become an
industry standard, and plans to license it for a fee to others.
Smart TVs
While only a minority of smartphones
currently use ARM-based GPUs, the firm says it has already captured more than
70% of the smart TV market. Screens from LG, Samsung, Sony and Sharp use chips
based on its technology, and Mali GPUs also appear in many set-top boxes. ARM
says manufacturers have already shown interest in its latest designs to help
them add features. "As smart TVs get more content brought to them, things
like user-interfaces are going to become much more complex," said Mr
Smith. "That means greater graphics capabilities, running both [media]
content and high-end games."
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