PowerVR SGX Mobile
| Written by: Etali |
| Date: 2005-07-28 |
Imagination Technologies – a leader in silicon IP cores – debuts its PowerVR SGX Shader Graphics Accelerator family, the future of wireless mobile embedded graphics and video technology. The PowerVR SGX cores for wireless applications are part of Imagination’s PowerVR Series5 scalable and fully programmable unified shader graphics and video core family, previously codenamed Eurasia. The first cores from this family target mainstream and performance mobile graphics with state-of-the-art support for 2D and 3D and an industry leading feature set that exceeds OGL 2.0 shader and Microsoft Vertex and Pixel Shader Model 3 requirements. PowerVR SGX is available for licensing in three scaled variants (PowerVR SGX510, SGX520, SGX530) with sizes ranging from less than 2mm2 to 8mm2 in 90nm technology. These variants will enable a wide range of mobile devices from basic phones and entry-level feature phones to mainstream feature phones and advanced feature and smart phones.“Despite its very small size PowerVR SGX will set a tough benchmark that any competitors will have to stretch to compare with and, with advanced programmability and state-of-the-art shader features, will enable content developers to create a distinct new generation of mobile games and applications,” says Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination Technologies. PowerVR SGX enables the highest performance, most efficient and lowest power consumption solution for handheld 3D graphics and video. Each scalable PowerVR SGX variant provides highly flexible support for video codecs with zero silicon overhead, using the advanced programmability of the core. PowerVR SGX builds on the architectural benefits found in Imagination’s PowerVR MBX family, which is already the de facto standard for mobile graphics with licensees including six of the world’s top 10 semiconductor manufacturers. The first PowerVR SGX deliverables will be available for shipping to lead partners from next quarter. The PowerVR SGX family will co-exist alongside PowerVR MBX, which is currently integrated in a variety of devices including mobile handhelds, car navigation and entertainment systems. PowerVR SGX510, SGX520 and SGX530 are compatible with content created for PowerVR MBX. PowerVR SGX is backwardly compatible with key features from the PowerVR MBX family like the vertex shader programs and 2 and 4-bit PVR-TC™ texture compression. These compatibilities, and continued support for all existing PowerVR extensions to OpenGL ES 1.1, allow comprehensive software support developed on the PowerVR MBX platform to be carried forward to PowerVR SGX.The new-generation PowerVR SGX offers all the advantages of PowerVR’s highly efficient tile based architecture. Unlike traditional graphics solutions that demand expensive memory or very large silicon areas, PowerVR's unique, patented tile-based rendering and deferred pixel shading architecture allows a very small silicon die to deliver higher performance and higher image quality, at lower power consumption, than competing technologies. PowerVR SGX takes the PowerVR architecture to the next level with a unified scalable shader engine (USSE™), which combines vertex shader and pixel shader features in a single scalable processing unit, enabling mobile semiconductor and device manufacturers to plan a roadmap where PowerVR will continue to enable the best performance in the most efficient architecture for the mobile industry. Shader technology enables superior realism and advanced features when rendering 3D objects and, by making 3D effects more programmable, gives freedom to content developers to create more visually compelling and unique games and applications.Continues Yassaie: “With its PowerVR deferred pixel shading architecture the PowerVR SGX family has the lowest core and system power demands. It’s ideal for unified memory systems plus integrated CPU designs in mobile and cost sensitive applications. Couple that with wide standards compatibility, high scalability from a unified shader architecture, pipeline scalability from 1x to 8x and beyond and video encode and decode for free, and you have a solution that is demonstrably superior to any other offering on the market. “With PowerVR SGX we expect to maintain our hard-won leadership position on size, power and performance – and its scalability means it’s suitable for a wide range of end-user products. The specification says it all: this is the premier wireless graphics solution and will enable our partners to continue the reshaping of the mobile multimedia market they have already begun using our technology.”Says Dr. Jon Peddie, the leading market researcher in graphics: “The mobile phone is advancing in functionality at a 3X pace compared to the PC, and future high-end phones will incorporate the OpenGL ES 2.0 API with shader capabilities, similar to features found on high-end PCs. Imagination Technologies, with design wins in most of the major handsets, continues its lead by being the first to introduce a design with support for this new API and we expect this new technology to fuel the next wave in modern advanced mobile phones.” |
