Santa Clara, Calif. - ARM introduced the ARM Mali-T604 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) at the ARM Technology Conference 2010 in Santa Clara, bringing innovative and compelling visual computing to next-generation consumer electronics devices.
Delivering up to a 5x performance improvement over current Mali graphics processors, the Mali-T604 delivers graphics performance with an energy-efficient profile. The Mali-T604 enables rich user experiences not previously seen in consumer electronics devices, scaling from smartphones to high-end digital entertainment systems, says a representative. The Mali-T604 is currently available to license by lead partners. Samsung, already a licensee of the Mali graphic processor technology, will be the first ARM Partner able to gain access to the Mali-T604.
“Visual computing is driving the next generation of consumer electronics, as consumers and developers demand the highest levels of graphics performance,” says Lance Howarth, EVP and general manager, Media Processing Division, ARM. “The tri-pipe architecture in the Mali-T604 provides compute functionality and high-performance graphics without compromise, enabling unequalled user experiences in energy-efficient consumer electronic devices.”
The scalable, multicore Mali-T604 GPU is designed for visual computing in the consumer electronics space, including mobiles, tablets, DTVs, and automotive infotainment. The tri-pipe graphics architecture within the Mali-T604 GPU addresses the computationally intensive demand inherent in next-generation interactive user interfaces and gaming, says a representative.
“Allegorithmic is excited by the announcement of Mali-T604 with its enhanced GPGPU capabilities, which will make it possible for procedural content to be computed on the device, enabling higher-quality graphics, reduced memory bandwidth and footprint, and best of all, reduced energy consumption,” says Dr. Sébastien Deguy, founder and CEO, Allegorithmic.
ARM’s fourth-generation GPU is specifically designed to meet the needs of General Purpose computing on GPU (GPGPU) and extends API support to include full profile Khronos OpenCL and Microsoft DirectX. Support for GPGPU is becoming increasingly important for enhanced Augmented Reality applications and gesture recognition.
The Mali-T604 offers techniques for reducing memory bandwidth consumption, by up to 30%, improving system-level energy efficiency. The Mali-T604 exploits ARM’s Cache Coherent Interconnect (CCI-400) to deliver a memory coherent system with the recently announced Cortex-A15 MPCore. Bringing the key resources together into an optimized coherent system enables higher performance and more efficient data sharing, maximizing throughput in ARM compute sub-systems.