Imagination's New PowerVR Series6 GPU Cores Likely to be Used by Apple

[Akshay Masand]

According to a press release issued today by Imagination Technologies, a British-based maker of a mobile graphics and microprocessor chip technology, we can expect twenty times the performance of current generation hardware with five times greater efficiency with the release of their new mobiles graphics architecture code-named Rogue. The company provided more information its first two PowerVR Series6 deigns, the G6200 and G6400 today.

The G6200 and G6400 have two and four compute clusters, which correspond with computing performance that exceeds “100 gigaFLOPS” and reaches “the teraFLOPS range.” Some of the base features supported by all members of the Series6 family include OpenGL ES “Halti,” OpenGL 3.x/4.x, and OpenCL 1.x – all of which are not only supported but also widely used by Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. Furthermore, they also support Microsoft’s DirectX10 and some chips are said to be WHQL DirectX 11.1 compliant.

So far eight chip manufacturers have signed up for the new designs including ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments, MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Renesas Electronics. As of right now, it hasn’t been confirmed whether Apple is amongst the two unnamed licensees but it is being assumed that Apple’s custom-built mobile chips will continue to use Imagination’s efficient PowerVR architecture.

For those of you who didn’t already know, Apple holds a 9.5% stake in Imagination and is currently a licensee of Imagination’s technology even though it has never been officially named. The graphics technology has been used to power all versions of iPhones and iPads since 2007. Currently, the A5 chip inside the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S uses Imagination’s PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU cores and the A4 chip found in the original iPad and the iPhone 4 contains an older-generation single-core PowerVR SGX 535 GPU. PowerVR SGX graphics are even found in the iPhone 3GS and the third generation iPod Touch.

With that being said, news of improved GPUs is great and it leaves everyone anticipating the iPad 3 and the next generation iPhone that much more.

Source: Imagination Technologies

[Colby21]

If apple decides to implement this technology, don't expect it for quite some time.

The 2011 iPhone 4s uses a SoC that was launched in January 2009, almost 2008.
The 2010 iPhone 4 uses a SoC that was launched in 2007

Also, the original iPhone used Imagination's PowerVR architecture in their MBX chipset. Guess when that SoC was launched? 2001. The original iPhone debuted in 2007. So, you can see the disparity here... Don't expect it anytime soon.

[Zokunei]

If apple decides to implement this technology, don't expect it for quite some time.

The 2011 iPhone 4s uses a SoC that was launched in January 2009, almost 2008.
The 2010 iPhone 4 uses a SoC that was launched in 2007

Also, the original iPhone used Imagination's PowerVR architecture in their MBX chipset. Guess when that SoC was launched? 2001. The original iPhone debuted in 2007. So, you can see the disparity here... Don't expect it anytime soon.

So the image should show the A8 then?

[mbouchamekh]

The geniusity of apple is more in the OS rather than exploiting the latest HW tek

[reanimationxp]

If apple decides to implement this technology, don't expect it for quite some time.

The 2011 iPhone 4s uses a SoC that was launched in January 2009, almost 2008.
The 2010 iPhone 4 uses a SoC that was launched in 2007

Also, the original iPhone used Imagination's PowerVR architecture in their MBX chipset. Guess when that SoC was launched? 2001. The original iPhone debuted in 2007. So, you can see the disparity here... Don't expect it anytime soon.

Yes, this will not make it into the A6.