Multi-Core GPUs Announced from iPhone Chip Maker

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/18/multi-core-gpus-announced-from-iphone-chip-maker/)

Imagination Technologies announced further details (http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?NewsID=449) of their first multi-core embedded graphics chip called POWERVR SGX543MP this week. The Register explains (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/18/sgx543mp/) that the multi-core support in the new chips is essentially transparent to application developers: In other words, the SGX543 can have any number of cores from two to sixteen with no change in the driver software or the application. All that complex data/pipeline/thread management is done in hardware. No muss, no fuss.The Register then makes a questionable leap that this could power an Apple Tablet. Still, Apple's interest in the technology seems certain as they are a licensee and investor (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/12/18/apple-is-licensee-and-investor-of-imagination-technology/) of Imagination Technologies and currently uses the company's PowerVR chip in the iPhone and iPod Touch.

According to the press release, the new chips are being delivered to customers in two-core and 16-core variants and appear to incorporate support for OpenGL and OpenCL. While Apple has not announced any new hardware revisions to the iPhone, many believe that the next generation iPhone will likely be released alongside the public release of the iPhone 3.0 firmware this summer.

Article Link: Multi-Core GPUs Announced from iPhone Chip Maker (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/18/multi-core-gpus-announced-from-iphone-chip-maker/)

[edesignuk]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=670136 ;) :)

[commander.data]

I guess if this is completely transparent to the driver and programmer PowerVR's GPU isn't as much SLI, ie. more than 1 graphics card together, as it is a dual die design like Intel's Core 2 Quad. I guess it's easier to do since it's an embedded design anyways. If all the cores share the same memory pool it'll probably be more efficient to unlike SLI where the memory storage is separated which makes having the separate cards working together more difficult since it's easier for them to work on separate tasks, but hard for them to work on the same task.

[overanalyzer]

If Apple releases the many planned features of iPhone OS 3.0, App Developers utilize them as whole-heartedly as they have utilized the SDK so far, and a new multi-core iPhone comes out, I think we're witnessing the beginning of an entirely new era of computer-people integration. The idea of masses of people having a computer with them at all times with this level of capabilities is likely going to alter society every bit as much as the personal computer being widely adopted.


I just hope fart apps aren't the only thing we can accomplish. :rolleyes:

[adamw]

Great news. I hope Apple can use this new chip in their products!

[kcmac]

A computer that just happens to also be a phone. Looks like I will be upgrading this summer fall if this all comes to light.

[xsecretfiles]

If its comes in the new iphone, I will upgrade in a heart beat.

[themoonisdown09]

This would be a huge upgrade! I'm really hoping the this actually happens because I'll be buying my first iPhone this summer.

[gmcalpin]

I just hope fart apps aren't the only thing we can accomplish. :rolleyes:
Don't be so cynical. Free porn will be available everywhere, too.

[sam10685]

If I don't get new hardware with software 3.0, I will burst into flames.

[Pwned]

June can't come soon enough...:apple:

[Enuratique]

I'm skeptical of this hardware going in the next iPhone revision. My hunch is that what comes out this summer is a minor spec bump (32GB memory, probably better camera / memory that can support many read/writes for recording, maybe a slightly faster CPU) and that the 4th gen iPhone will be what gets these tasty treats... I think Apple has its hands full with ironing out the bugs in iPhone OS3.0 and this hardware may get tried out in a tablet device first as a trial run. I think Apple's investment in PA Semi is what will really make the iPhone a true computer in your pocket.

[chrisgeleven]

I'm skeptical of this hardware going in the next iPhone revision. My hunch is that what comes out this summer is a minor spec bump (32GB memory, probably better camera / memory that can support many read/writes for recording, maybe a slightly faster CPU) and that the 4th gen iPhone will be what gets these tasty treats... I think Apple has its hands full with ironing out the bugs in iPhone OS3.0 and this hardware may get tried out in a tablet device first as a trial run. I think Apple's investment in PA Semi is what will really make the iPhone a true computer in your pocket.

I agree. I think they would need better battery technology to pull off a multi-core processor.

[redwin11]

June can't come soon enough...:apple:

July by the time we get our hands on anything new...

...or potentially August if Apple decide to have low stocks of this handset too.

[branjosef]

I didn't know the new iphone nano was going to be multi-core. What's the point of owning a regular iphone then? :eek:

[shiseiryu1]

I'm skeptical of this hardware going in the next iPhone revision. My hunch is that what comes out this summer is a minor spec bump (32GB memory, probably better camera / memory that can support many read/writes for recording, maybe a slightly faster CPU) and that the 4th gen iPhone will be what gets these tasty treats... I think Apple has its hands full with ironing out the bugs in iPhone OS3.0 and this hardware may get tried out in a tablet device first as a trial run. I think Apple's investment in PA Semi is what will really make the iPhone a true computer in your pocket.

I agree that it is unlikely the upcoming iPhone will have multiple cores...seems to me that what the iPhone needs in the near future is better battery life, not more cores. The battery already drains like crazy if you use the phone in any meaningful way; fix that first and then I'll be more excited about extra processing power.

[lazyrighteye]

2-core = iPhone, 16-core = tablet?
Nah.

[Hardcoredan52]

What about battery life? The iphone in my opinion dies too fast as it is ....

[Yvan256]

I agree that it is unlikely the upcoming iPhone will have multiple cores...seems to me that what the iPhone needs in the near future is better battery life, not more cores. The battery already drains like crazy if you use the phone in any meaningful way; fix that first and then I'll be more excited about extra processing power.

If you have more cores than you can disable the ones not needed, saving power.

[Michael73]

I, for one have been holding out buying an iPhone since it launched June 29, 2007 always thinking the hardware and software had some maturing to do. I'm not one of those people who change mobile devices often. In fact, I'm still using a Blackberry 7100 that is more than 4 years old. I firmly believe that with the rollout of v3 of the OS and the third gen of the hardware design, this summer could be the sweet spot to get an iPhone.

[8CoreWhore]

I'm all over this like a duck on a junebug! :p

[diamond.g]

Does anyone know if Core= SPU in this case? If so wouldn't that mean that any modern GPU is multi-core already?

[Peace]

Does anyone know if Core= SPU in this case? If so wouldn't that mean that any modern GPU is multi-core already?

This chip is designed for embedded products not normal computers.

[darwinian]

It's certainly not unreasonable but still an assumption to say that these chips will necessarily draw more power than current iterations. Is this true somewhere?


Disclaimer: no, I have not read the PR fully.

[Bye Bye Baby]

I predict a new product not another product for the summer- no new iphone rather some other wizz bang product that will make me want to spend more money.

I love to hate that feeling of "hmm can I pay for this now..."

[8CoreWhore]

If I don't get new hardware with software 3.0, I will burst into flames.
Too late.

[winninganthem]

That's really cool how they're able to make it 'transparent' so that all of the multi-core operations take place on the hardware and not that software side.

[kenned]

Don't be so cynical. Free porn will be available everywhere, too.

Apple said they wouldn't allow any kind of porn apps

[8CoreWhore]

Apple said they wouldn't allow any kind of porn apps

Safari

[diamond.g]

This chip is designed for embedded products not normal computers.

So the terminology doesn't follow? I was under the impression that a Core is a logical contained unit. GPU's (embedded or otherwise) only have one core, but can have multiple processing units (Stream Processing Units seems to be the new hotness). What I was asking is if each "Core" in this new arm is self contained, or if it is just fancy marketing speak for stream processing unit.


EDIT: Found my answer...
The POWERVR SGX543MP family enables up to sixteen cores of POWERVR SGX543 programmable GP-GPU logic to be integrated in a high performance, multi-processor graphics solution without performance or silicon area compromises. Taking the already high-performance four-pipe POWERVR SGX543, and then scaling that performance up to between eight and 64 pipelines, POWERVR SGX543MP delivers performance comparable to many desktops, laptops and games consoles.
So it basically is marketing speak with a slight twist. It appears that this is the first use of dynamic pipeline scaling. But is seems to be done in groups of 4 (which to PowerVR is 1 Core).

[davidbrummy]

So I take it any new phone would have to go through FCC approval? The chances of that happening in private is zero so we would no well in advance. If there is a new phone in June it is likely just to be more memory as that you might not have to do FCC approval for that.

Without major battery improvements I have my doubts over this. Are there any rumors of new batteries?

[Akzel]

I'm skeptical of this hardware going in the next iPhone revision. My hunch is that what comes out this summer is a minor spec bump (32GB memory, probably better camera / memory that can support many read/writes for recording, maybe a slightly faster CPU) and that the 4th gen iPhone will be what gets these tasty treats... I think Apple has its hands full with ironing out the bugs in iPhone OS3.0 and this hardware may get tried out in a tablet device first as a trial run. I think Apple's investment in PA Semi is what will really make the iPhone a true computer in your pocket.

Definitely agree!

[jctevere]

I am a bit confused on what this statement actually means, "The SGX543 can have any number of cores from two to sixteen with no change in the driver software or the application."

Does this mean that when a program / application / game is written to use the graphics chip / card it is automatically optimized depending on how many cores the hardware has that is intending on using it? If this is true does this mean that when the new iPhone 3rd generation is realeased with a much more powerful graphics component, applications written for the first two generations of the iPhone can be optomized? I am a little confused on what this whole things means.

Or does it simply mean that applications written for the 3rd generation iPhone which uses for our purposes 2 cores, and a tablet mac which uses for our purposes 16 cores; then the applications/games don't have to change their programming to support it and possibly optomize itself? Or am I looking too far into this and does it simply mean that they use the same driver and thats it?

[WannaGoMac]

This is what sucks about apple. They wont tell anyone what hardware is coming. Makes it impossible to plan purchases, which I guess is why Apple doesn't market to businesses.

I wonder if a new iPhone is coming out, do they need to register with the FCC or is that just if they change transmitters or something?

[diamond.g]

I am a bit confused on what this statement actually means, "The SGX543 can have any number of cores from two to sixteen with no change in the driver software or the application."

Does this mean that when a program / application / game is written to use the graphics chip / card it is automatically optimized depending on how many cores the hardware has that is intending on using it? If this is true does this mean that when the new iPhone 3rd generation is realeased with a much more powerful graphics component, applications written for the first two generations of the iPhone can be optomized? I am a little confused on what this whole things means.

Or does it simply mean that applications written for the 3rd generation iPhone which uses for our purposes 2 cores, and a tablet mac which uses for our purposes 16 cores; then the applications/games don't have to change their programming to support it and possibly optomize itself? Or am I looking too far into this and does it simply mean that they use the same driver and thats it?
My understanding of it is the driver/software has no control over how many cores are being used. That takes place in some hardware logic.

[cal6n]

I agree. I think they would need better battery technology to pull off a multi-core processor.

What about battery life? The iphone in my opinion dies too fast as it is ....

You guys are still stuck in your x86 Intel mindset. This is ARM that we're talking about. (edit: and they're getting better battery tech, too)

[Chupa Chupa]

I'm skeptical of this hardware going in the next iPhone revision. My hunch is that what comes out this summer is a minor spec bump (32GB memory, probably better camera / memory that can support many read/writes for recording, maybe a slightly faster CPU) and that the 4th gen iPhone will be what gets these tasty treats... I think Apple has its hands full with ironing out the bugs in iPhone OS3.0 and this hardware may get tried out in a tablet device first as a trial run. I think Apple's investment in PA Semi is what will really make the iPhone a true computer in your pocket.

I disagree. The next iPhone has to be a big step forward otherwise there is little incentive for 2G owners to go back on contract. You have to assume the 2G owners that wanted 3G already upgraded last year. There are still a nice chunk of us 2Gers out there though that are happy and unmoved by the 3G but ready to upgrade to a truly better iPhone.

Also the 3G was mostly a baby step. If Apple doesn't do something to not just meet the Pre, but to exceed it then it loses some of its luster. If all Apple does is memory bump the 3G it's going to look like they are resting on their laurels. iPhone 3.0 looks great, but hardware matters too.

[Drumjim85]

So I take it any new phone would have to go through FCC approval? The chances of that happening in private is zero so we would no well in advance. If there is a new phone in June it is likely just to be more memory as that you might not have to do FCC approval for that.

Without major battery improvements I have my doubts over this. Are there any rumors of new batteries?

Apple has done a great job at keeping the FCC quite in the past, i wouldn't expect this to be any different... at what point did the FCC leak the 3g?

[Chupa Chupa]

This is what sucks about apple. They wont tell anyone what hardware is coming. Makes it impossible to plan purchases, which I guess is why Apple doesn't market to businesses.

I wonder if a new iPhone is coming out, do they need to register with the FCC or is that just if they change transmitters or something?

Yes and no. True they rarely give specific dates or roadmaps, but Apple execs have stated general time frames when new product will be announced, i.e., iPhones are June/July, consumer computers and iPods Sept/Oct. There is also usually a laptop update in the spring and fall. The Mac Pro and mini are probably the hardest to pin down since they are not regularly updated.

[Tussen69]

This is great news becuase this will make the iphone battery time longer or it will make the iphone faster .. I think it will be somewhere inbetween ...

More Cores means that the CPU can run slower and use less battery but still have the same performance as the older iphone models

.. but I think the performance will be incressed and the battery time will probely be a little bit better because there will be a better battery in the next iphone ...

so in outher words . more cores = less battery .. not neccesary more ...

seems that there are people that think that just because Apple is working on the iPhone 3.0 software there will be no new hardware ... thats wrong ..

Apple have seperate Hardware and Software iPhone Teams. Do you think the hardware team have done nothing ??? ..

Steve jobs will shorly be back when it is time to release the iPhone 3:rd gen together with the iPhone 3.0 .....

I have the first gen so i will probely get the 3:rd gen when its released ..

so what can Apple do to improve the iPhone hardware ...

- Front Side Camera
- Improved Back-Side camera
- Video-Recorder
- Multi-Core Arm CPU
- 32 GB version
- New design (its thinner!)
- Improved game performace (shaders and what the new arm cpu is bringing)
- OpenCL - Improved App perfornace thanks to the new hardware/software
- New Aceccories


It seems more then logic that Apple will release the 3:rd gen iphone as the Video iPhone with Mobile iChat Video and ofcourse a version of iChat for Windows ...

[donlphi]

I disagree. The next iPhone has to be a big step forward otherwise there is little incentive for 2G owners to go back on contract. You have to assume the 2G owners that wanted 3G already upgraded last year. There are still a nice chunk of us 2Gers out there though that are happy and unmoved by the 3G but ready to upgrade to a truly better iPhone.

Also the 3G was mostly a baby step. If Apple doesn't do something to not just meet the Pre, but to exceed it then it loses some of its luster. If all Apple does is memory bump the 3G it's going to look like they are resting on their laurels. iPhone 3.0 looks great, but hardware matters too.

Yeah, but there are first gen iPhone owners, like myself, that have been holding off too. I don't know how many didn't make the just to 2nd Generation, but if the new 3.0 software isn't going to work 100% on my phone, then I will definitely need to make the plunge.

The whole GPS thing didn't really catch my attention last time since there was no turn by turn available. 3G really wasn't a big enough speed boost either. Some of these new features seem really nice though. If they work on my 1st Gen, then I will probably stay put.

As far as "not just meeting the pre" goes, I think the iTunes software and the App store far surpass what the pre can offer at launch. The pre is a slick looking phone, but music libraries and video libraries get pretty big. I don't see people going and converting their entire collection just so they can listen and watch on the PRE, unless there is an easy solution.

[audioteknika]

Multicore in 2010. Not before.

As others mentionned, the june revision won't be a huge step forward to the current model. Minor storage & memory increase to handle the push notifications + better battery life. No more, no less.

[redwin11]

Multicore in 2010. Not before.

As others mentionned, the june revision won't be a huge step forward to the current model. Minor storage & memory increase to handle the push notifications + better battery life. No more, no less.

End of thread.

[WannaGoMac]

I disagree. The next iPhone has to be a big step forward otherwise there is little incentive for 2G owners to go back on contract. You have to assume the 2G owners that wanted 3G already upgraded last year. There are still a nice chunk of us 2Gers out there though that are happy and unmoved by the 3G but ready to upgrade to a truly better iPhone.

Also the 3G was mostly a baby step. If Apple doesn't do something to not just meet the Pre, but to exceed it then it loses some of its luster. If all Apple does is memory bump the 3G it's going to look like they are resting on their laurels. iPhone 3.0 looks great, but hardware matters too.

Well, and also the functionality. The Palm Pre (yes i know its not out) has much better functioinality over the iPhone OS. It's basically taken a lot of the irriitating things about the iPhone and fixed them.. at least for me.

For example, the way the Pre handles notifications are intrusion free (the iPhone stops whatever you're doing), and how the Pre handles conversations by automatically switching between IM and SMS depending on connectivity.

[argor]

for those that are wondering yes they are single cores
thanks to its Tile-Based Deferred Rendering (As the polygon generating program feeds powerVR driver which stores them in memory in triangle strip format. Unlike other architectures, polygon rendering is not performed until all polygon information has been collated for the current frame – hence rendering is deferred.

In order to render, the display is split into rectangular sections in a grid pattern. Each section is known as a tile. With each tile is associated a list of the triangles that visibly overlap that tile. Each tile is rendered in turn to produce the final image.)
so they can have tile send to a different cores without any performs penalty
to be rendered


the driver will pass data to an "MP code scheduler," which will in turn pass that data to one pipeline scheduler per core, which will then pass it to one thread scheduler per multi-threaded processing engine, which will then manage the threads through the engines as they process the graphics data

in other words, the SGX543 can have any number of cores from two to sixteen with no change in the driver software or the application."

also the 16 core version is to big for the iphone
to give you a hint how powerful 16 core version is
it has more than 2x the polygon throughput (and lots of fill-rate too) than the ps3


w

[gnasher729]

I agree. I think they would need better battery technology to pull off a multi-core processor.

I agree that it is unlikely the upcoming iPhone will have multiple cores...seems to me that what the iPhone needs in the near future is better battery life, not more cores. The battery already drains like crazy if you use the phone in any meaningful way; fix that first and then I'll be more excited about extra processing power.

Actually, multiple cores are useful to safe battery life. Power usage grows with the square of clock speed. If Apple is using a single core graphics chip right now, they could use four cores instead, running them at a fourth of the clock speed, each using 1/16th of the power of a full speed chip, and four of them using a quarter of the power that a single chip would use. And silicon is cheap.

[namethisfile]

It seems more then logic that Apple will release the 3:rd gen iphone as the Video iPhone with Mobile iChat Video and ofcourse a version of iChat for Windows ...

i wonder if it will be powerful enough to allow editing on-the-go. say, in iMovie? That program seems very well-suited for multi-touch editing. this would make the iPhone really amazing.

[Marx55]

The Apple iTablet must run the full Mac OS X (not the limited OS X of the iPhone and iPod touch) to run the full apple iWork (read Keynote) and the full Microsoft Office (read PowerPoint).

No more than 400 g, with true Firewire, Ethernet and at least two USB2 ports. If possible, pocketable like the OQO model 2+, but with a tablet form factor. It is not to work on it, It is just for Keynote and PowerPoint presentations via VGA-out port!

Can Apple deliver? We need thousands for our University.

[davidbrummy]

Apple has done a great job at keeping the FCC quite in the past, i wouldn't expect this to be any different... at what point did the FCC leak the 3g?

http://www.maclife.com/article/the_fcc_and_the_iphone

There is no point not announcing before you go to the FCC. Jobs said so himself for the 3G iphone.

[JoeDMD]

2 core iphone $199
16 core iphone pro $3299

[plumbingandtech]

2 core iphone $199
16 core iphone pro $3299

Running mobile safari at break neck speed... priceless...

:)

[tgildred]

Too late.

Thank god that man was wearing a mask, gloves, hat, and extra layers of clothes!

[cg0def]

I might have missed this from the keynote but the iPhone API does not support OpenCL and it was not announced yesterday. Why would Apple skip the new API if they are about to release a new hardware revision? I'm pretty sure that Apple will eventually release a new version of iPhone but I doubt that it'll be this summer.

[guzhogi]

The Apple iTablet must run the full Mac OS X (not the limited OS X of the iPhone and iPod touch) to run the full apple iWork (read Keynote) and the full Microsoft Office (read PowerPoint).

No more than 400 g, with true Firewire, Ethernet and at least two USB2 ports. If possible, pocketable like the OQO model 2+, but with a tablet form factor. It is not to work on it, It is just for Keynote and PowerPoint presentations via VGA-out port!

Can Apple deliver? We need thousands for our University.

I doubt something that's pocketable will be able to run the whole Mac OS I have coworkers who tried a MacBook Air w/ an Atom processor & said it was slow. Plus, having 2 USB ports, firewire & ethernet won't be able to fit, IMO. Besides, I think it would be too hard to navigate all the menus, icons, etc on a 3-4" display. Minimum size screen to be able to see & use everything in the full Mac OS X well enough, IMO, would be 10".

[MarkMe]

A computer that just happens to also be a phone. Looks like I will be upgrading this summer fall if this all comes to light.

Me Too:D Actually it would be an update from a Moto phone.
Mark

[ChrisA]

I just hope fart apps aren't the only thing we can accomplish. :rolleyes:

The problem here is not-technical but how to pay for the development of more compex apps. A team of 10 developers can easly burn through $1.5M per year. Where does that $1.5M come from if the apps are sold at a buck per copy?

OK some companies will operate at a loss for a while to break into a new market but in the long run income and cost must balance. Apple is helping with the new in-app sales and also with providing such a great API what all the hard jobs are done by Apple engineers, leaving only the user interface design and what not to developers. This greatly lowers the effort and cost to build a new iPhone app but still, software developers make middle class incomes.

People here will pay $79 for the new iLife and $129 for the new Mac OS and $199 for Logic Express. But iPhone apps sell for 10x to 20x less.

Until they solve this economic problem you are either going to see only very simple apps that one guy can do from home in a few weeks or bigger stuff sold at a loss that is linked to some for-pay service.

[Lesser Evets]

I have coworkers who tried a MacBook Air w/ an Atom processor & said it was slow.

This is... so mixed up.

The Air has a C2D. I was just looking one over today. If they chop off the keyboard and slide the monitor and glass down, shrank it a little since the monitor has a large frame rim, got rid of most ports and added a dock connector, the Air would be the most awesome tablet.

Utter sex for over $2000.

[jlewis2k1]

This is great news becuase this will make the iphone battery time longer or it will make the iphone faster .. I think it will be somewhere inbetween ...

More Cores means that the CPU can run slower and use less battery but still have the same performance as the older iphone models

.. but I think the performance will be incressed and the battery time will probely be a little bit better because there will be a better battery in the next iphone ...

so in outher words . more cores = less battery .. not neccesary more ...

seems that there are people that think that just because Apple is working on the iPhone 3.0 software there will be no new hardware ... thats wrong ..

Apple have seperate Hardware and Software iPhone Teams. Do you think the hardware team have done nothing ??? ..

Steve jobs will shorly be back when it is time to release the iPhone 3:rd gen together with the iPhone 3.0 .....

I have the first gen so i will probely get the 3:rd gen when its released ..

so what can Apple do to improve the iPhone hardware ...

- Front Side Camera
- Improved Back-Side camera
- Video-Recorder
- Multi-Core Arm CPU
- 32 GB version
- New design (its thinner!)
- Improved game performace (shaders and what the new arm cpu is bringing)
- OpenCL - Improved App perfornace thanks to the new hardware/software
- New Aceccories


It seems more then logic that Apple will release the 3:rd gen iphone as the Video iPhone with Mobile iChat Video and ofcourse a version of iChat for Windows ...

Oh don't forget they really should consider on adding HAC (Hearing Aid Compatibility). I know there are plenty of heard of hearing consumers that would love to see a M3/T3 or M4/T4 rating. I have tried both generations of the iPhone and both do not have any HAC. If they were to come out with a new iPhone that has this, I would be more than willing to switch carriers to get the iPhone.

[Egnat69]

This is... so mixed up.

The Air has a C2D. I was just looking one over today. If they chop off the keyboard and slide the monitor and glass down, shrank it a little since the monitor has a large frame rim, got rid of most ports and added a dock connector, the Air would be the most awesome tablet.

Utter sex for over $2000.

that's about what i would say the tablet will actually be... 10'' touchscreen, ulv c2d, nvidia ion 2, custom flash memory (easier to fit in than usual ssds), no superdrive, 1 usb, 1 fw, maybe minidisplay port, bluetooth, wifi, done!

no arm, no atom, no netbook ...

[BTW]

"this could power an Apple Tablet"

One could only hope. :D

[Hattig]

I guess if this is completely transparent to the driver and programmer PowerVR's GPU isn't as much SLI, ie. more than 1 graphics card together, as it is a dual die design like Intel's Core 2 Quad. I guess it's easier to do since it's an embedded design anyways. If all the cores share the same memory pool it'll probably be more efficient to unlike SLI where the memory storage is separated which makes having the separate cards working together more difficult since it's easier for them to work on separate tasks, but hard for them to work on the same task.

It's not a "dual die" or even a "die", it's licensable embeddable IP. The sort of IP that PA Semi would license to put in their next generation SoC for Apple, along with a couple of ARM Cortex A8s and all the other stuff a SoC includes.

So you cut and paste the core logic up to 16 times, connect them up with however they interconnect, connect them to a memory bus or the SoC bus, and send your design off to a fab to make for you. This usually takes a year or two from date of licensable IP to finished product.

[branjosef]

I am so excited

[MrCrowbar]

that's about what i would say the tablet will actually be... 10'' touchscreen, ulv c2d, nvidia ion 2, custom flash memory (easier to fit in than usual ssds), no superdrive, 1 usb, 1 fw, maybe minidisplay port, bluetooth, wifi, done!

no arm, no atom, no netbook ...

Sounds good. 10" is a good size, low power Core 2 sounds sweet. You don't need too much power but the Atom is too limited (it runs Leopard pretty well though) and there's no dual core version yet, is there? The Macbook Air's CPUs should do the trick. On the other hand, this thing shall be very thin, so putting a fan in there might be tricky and passively cooling a Core 2 in a tight package won't work that well. I agree on the custom memory (à la iPod Touch), soldered on RAM (like on the Macbook Air) and maybe one USB port to hook up an external hard drive, or keyboard, or whatever. Use the same tech as in the 17" Macbook Pro. A tablet is the ultimate mobile computer and should be able to be useful for hours on battery. The iPhone is disappointing in that aspect.

Firewire makes little sense though. Consumer electronics don't use it anymore for a while except some big hard drives (which need a power outlet, i.e. are not portable) targeted to Mac users. It would be sweet though for audio recording geeks, to have a MOTU Ultralite and the tablet resting on top of it. Then again, my Macbook's Firewire port did not have enough power on Battery to make the Ultralite work reliably with 2 Mics and phandom power. It usually just went off after some time if the Macbook was running on battery.

[Hattig]

So it basically is marketing speak with a slight twist. It appears that this is the first use of dynamic pipeline scaling. But is seems to be done in groups of 4 (which to PowerVR is 1 Core).

Yeah, if forced to surmise on the architecture, I would assume that each pipeline (of which there are 4 in a core) handles a 32-bit floating point value. Therefore 64 pipelines would be directly comparable to 64 AMD Radeon 4xxx series shader cores. Except probably slower in speed (to save power), slower per clock (to reduce complexity, thus saving die space and power), and maybe with no support for double precision floating point, but maybe the hardware binds two pipelines together for that.

What would help here would be some GPGPU GFLOPS figures ;)

also the 16 core version is to big for the iphone
to give you a hint how powerful 16 core version is
it has more than 2x the polygon throughput (and lots of fill-rate too) than the ps3

Actually this comment makes me suspect that each pipeline can handle 128 bits, or 4x as many as my guess above.

I could see the iPhone having a 2 core version, and the iTablet (with 4x as many pixels to display) having an 8 core variant, and games running on both with very little performance difference despite the extra pixels to render on the tablet.

[chrmjenkins]

You guys are still stuck in your x86 Intel mindset. This is ARM that we're talking about. (edit: and they're getting better battery tech, too)

No, it's actually imagination technologies, not ARM.

Actually, multiple cores are useful to safe battery life. Power usage grows with the square of clock speed. If Apple is using a single core graphics chip right now, they could use four cores instead, running them at a fourth of the clock speed, each using 1/16th of the power of a full speed chip, and four of them using a quarter of the power that a single chip would use. And silicon is cheap.

Power usage does not grow with the square of clock speed. It grows with the square of voltage, and linearly with clock speed.



The only way this could mean anything good for the iphone other than improved graphics is if there's a good opencl implementation by the time the hardware hits.

[Hattig]

Power usage does not grow with the square of clock speed. It grows with the square of voltage, and linearly with clock speed.

But running at a slower speed can often be done at a lower voltage. Not a massive difference if it is 1V vs 1.2V I know, but maybe enough when combined with the reduced clock speed to make a reasonable difference.

[Egnat69]

You don't need too much power but the Atom is too limited (it runs Leopard pretty well though) and there's no dual core version yet, is there?
only dual core atom is the 330 desktop atom ... the desktop atoms are the only atoms supporting 64bit so far too ... would be a bit counterproductive working on 64bit snow leopard and building a device only capable of 32bit ;)

The Macbook Air's CPUs should do the trick. On the other hand, this thing shall be very thin, so putting a fan in there might be tricky and passively cooling a Core 2 in a tight package won't work that well.
the new mba cpu's (SL9300 and SL9400) have a TDP of 17W ... i agree they might me not like the passive cooling idea... the U2500 on the other hand works at 9W but only supports 533MHz FSB ... i'd expect intel to come up with a customized solution just in time as they did for the 1st gen mba though...

[designgeek]

But will this meet power use requirments? They said yesterday that background apps eat battery, wouldn't a multi core CPU do the same? These things already suck down juice like it's going out of style, maybe they could just put a touch screen on the 17" MBP's battery. That would be awesome!

[georgetang]

So, before yesterday, I had the feeling that Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 would exactly include everything they've mentioned.

But, I'm sure they still have tons of tricks awaiting for the rest of the world.

Especially if they used this multi-core processor.

Consider, that according to new OS 3.0, you could do video audio streaming, which coincidentally, next Mac OS Snow Leopard, might include Quick Time Pro in it, therefore, new hardware (not yet announced) might include iChat AV Mobile, letting people use iChat AV on the go. Which I believe would kick ass, only bottle neck would be AT&T's 3G bandwidth.

With new iPhone Server push notification, I'm positive that Apple would have iWork.com ready by summer.

Why is this important, because they could include iWork for iPhone with additional iWork.com functionality. You'll be able to do work on the phone, now that has Landscape.

And why iWork.com is important because it'll allow people who are still using Windows able to access, cooperate, and share documents.

Apple mentioned Voice Recorder, probably would enhance it, and include a Video Recorder, of course, new hardware would be required, and would probably do a MPEG4 DVD quality encoding, and would able to upload back to your mac via Push Notification (protocol or MobileMe) and once you're back to your Mac, it'll be ready for iMovie '09.

I'm seeing that a year or two from now, Apple's iPhone eco-system would be fantastic.

iLife, iWork, for iPhone. Of course, these softwares might have a premium, not much but consider Apple has sold 13.7M phones, and charging like 49.99 for both iLife & iWork for iPhone, that's USD 685M income.

And consider if people like the MobileMe that's additional recurring income every year.

[wizard]

It's certainly not unreasonable but still an assumption to say that these chips will necessarily draw more power than current iterations. Is this true somewhere?

You can't say anything for certain until you know who is doing the fabrication and on what process. Even then you need to know what the configuration is.

For example a two core GPU might actually run cooler that the current GPU while the sixteen core variant would be hotter. This is total speculation of course as I have no data. It also doesn't take into account the possibility that Apple might go middle of the road with 4 GPU cores or use odd clock rates.

So one can not assume that the hardware will be power hungery. On the baseline iPhone Apple has a lot of incentive to actually lower power usage so I foresee chip sets that are actually cooler. What this info release does today is to indicate that it will be easy to tailor performance to a devices power profile.

[qoute]


Disclaimer: no, I have not read the PR fully.[/QUOTE]

You likely wouldn't find the definitive info there. As noted there are many factors involved.

[mbleopard]

seems that there are people that think that just because Apple is working on the iPhone 3.0 software there will be no new hardware ... thats wrong ..

Apple have seperate Hardware and Software iPhone Teams. Do you think the hardware team have done nothing ??? ..

Yea your right, while there is a possibility that there won't be a new iPhone this summer it doesn't make any sense to say that there won't be for sure just because there is a major software release coming up, the software engineers don't have anything to do with the physical design and hardware of the iPhone.

[Plutonius]

I'm curious why some people gave a negative vote on multicore GPUs that can be used in cell phones ?

[Jayomat]

I'm curious why some people gave a negative vote on multicore GPUs that can be used in cell phones ?

thx :)

[twoodcc]

well this sounds great! can't wait to see these in a new iphone in june!

[=MuLti-CeLL=]

So, if these were announced and released today.

Lets say Apple IS using this in the next iPhone due out this June/July.

Wouldn't they need to be buying them, building them and testing them....like....NOW?!

How long does it take from production to release? Because that only leaves them, what, right around 3-4 months?

I for one, will be buying my first iPhone this summer and I'm hoping its an upgraded faster version, so, I hope its true.

:D

[Drumjim85]

So, if these were announced and released today.

Lets say Apple IS using this in the next iPhone due out this June/July.

Wouldn't they need to be buying them, building them and testing them....like....NOW?!

How long does it take from production to release? Because that only leaves them, what, right around 3-4 months?

I for one, will be buying my first iPhone this summer and I'm hoping its an upgraded faster version, so, I hope its true.

:D

Apple can get it's hands on parts that are not yet "released". For example, the processor that was first introduced in the MBA.

[=MuLti-CeLL=]

Apple can get it's hands on parts that are not yet "released". For example, the processor that was first introduced in the MBA.

Good to know! Thanks!

Oh and I thought I read somewhere that these were actually announced back in January, is that correct?

[bigchief]

http://www.maclife.com/article/the_fcc_and_the_iphone

There is no point not announcing before you go to the FCC. Jobs said so himself for the 3G iphone.

Apple is not changing radio signals are the they? Why do they have to go to FCC?

[Tussen69]

i wonder if it will be powerful enough to allow editing on-the-go. say, in iMovie? That program seems very well-suited for multi-touch editing. this would make the iPhone really amazing.

Well as soon as the Front-Side camera is there we will see "Photobooth" on the iPhone with realtime effects like the Photobooth on the Mac .. We will probely dont se custom backdrops mainly because its a portable device and the camera move to much to capture the background ..

and with the Video iPhone is released there will also be a iMovie-type of app .. For realy simple editing and then you can send a short movie via MMS and a longer Movie via E-Mail ..

Because the iphone 3.0 have a huge improved video streaming for watching video its highly possible that Apple also implented the reverse stuff .. broadcasting streamed video ... that will go handy for Mobile Video Chat on iPhone ...

hardware-wise the video calls is the only thing that iPhone is missing ..

the 3:rd gen iphone will realy be something ... and "3rd time is a charm"

[kdarling]

Apple is not changing radio signals are the they? Why do they have to go to FCC?

It's not just the radio types, it's their output pattern, power, and the overall device interference that must be tested.

So if it's a different circuit board or the antennae are changed (as in the shape changes), it needs full retesting. This is very likely, as newer, cheaper, more powerful parts will no doubt go into the design.

If just a small component value is changed, a change submittal form stating it doesn't affect anything important, must be done.

[argor]

Yeah, if forced to surmise

What would help here would be some GPGPU GFLOPS figures ;)



Actually this comment makes me suspect that each pipeline can handle 128 bits, or 4x as many as my guess above.

yes it wold not suprise me if each pipeline can handle 128 bits

there is a interesting discursion going on here http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=51601&page=2 about the SGX543

[diamond.g]

yes it wold not suprise me if each pipeline can handle 128 bits

there is a interesting discursion going on here http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=51601&page=2 about the SGX543

They do bring up a good point. Does OS 3.0 support OpenGL ES 2.0? If it did, it seems like games would have to be rewritten since ES 1.1 is fixed function whereas 2.0 isn't.

[argor]

They do bring up a good point. Does OS 3.0 support OpenGL ES 2.0? If it did, it seems like games would have to be rewritten since ES 1.1 is fixed function whereas 2.0 isn't.

powervr sgx suport ES 1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0
so they can add suport for OpenGL ES 2 whith out removen the suport for ES 1.1

[diamond.g]

powervr sgx suport ES 1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0
so they can add suport for OpenGL ES 2 whith out removen the suport for ES 1.1

True, I feel for the devs in that case. Fix Function fallback... Lots of work, and some stuff you just wouldn't be able to do (as well or as fast).

[argor]

True, I feel for the devs in that case. Fix Function fallback... Lots of work, and some stuff you just wouldn't be able to do (as well or as fast).
no it is a good think as the old aps that were written for the old iphone will be able to run on the new iphone
and if you like use Shader then you can use opengl es 2
you can have 2 rendring paths or just one
most thing that will only use opengl es 2 will be aps that really need the extra
horsepower that the powervr SGX530 will bring which is about 2-3x times more that the old iphone

[puckhead193]

i hope this gets pushed to the ipod touch.

[Chilz0r]

So we get multi-gpu support on a phone but not for Apple Computers???

[MacFly123]

The next iPhone in June will for sure have these new chips and Snow Leopard goodness baked in and will do video and HOPEFULLY iChat video conferencing too! :cool:

[winterspan]

Although this article is nowhere as bad as many others on the same topic (I appreciate that btw), It continues to bother me that both AI and Macrumors perpetuate what I consider ridiculous speculations regarding the next iPhone using multi-core Cortex-A9 ARM cpus and/or the fastest multi-core version of the PowerVR SGX graphics chip. In both cases, the core designs may be finalized, but silicon from ANY manufacturer is not even close to being ready to ship in a production device.

The single-core Cortex-A8 --- which is basically the predecessor to the Cortex-A9 --- has not even been integrated yet in a smartphone that is currently available on the market. It is assumed the Palm Pre will be the first. Similarly, there is not even a device on the market using ANY of the next-gen PowerVR SGX graphics series.

More importantly, we all know that Apple is very much concerned with the "overall package" of the devices it sells, and takes into account not just theoretical performance specifications, but a dozen other concerns like battery life, form factor, weight, units cost etc. The iPhone 3G uses a middle-of-the-road ARM11 cpu and the "light" version of the PowerVR MBX graphics chip. The major difference with other smartphone manufacturers is solely in their advanced software and the fact that they actually licensed drivers for and UTILIZE the SIMD/DSP and graphics functionality of the chipset in the iPhone. My point is that there is no reason to suspect they will abandon their approach to device design and suddenly decide to use the most expensive, powerful, and power-hungry ICs for the next iPhone --- e.g. some insane 1.0+ Ghz dual-core ARM and multi-core SGX graphics chip.

Much more likely I see the next iPhone using a chip that integrates a ~500-600Mhz (single-core) Cortex-A8 (which is already 1.5X as fast as an ARM11 at same clock) with a graphics chip that falls in the middle of the line of the next-gen PowerVR SGX series. Despite not being up to the level of the outrageous speculation of the Apple rumor press, this would still be incredible compared to even the current iPhone, and the resultant experience would continue to be FAR ahead of all the competitors.

My point is that expectations are high enough, and people are just going to be disappointed if they buy into this ridiculous hype..

[Sehnsucht]

My point is that expectations are high enough, and people are just going to be disappointed if they buy into this ridiculous hype..

Yeah exactly...everyone is drooling and slobbering with anticipation and saying "ZO MAH GODD DAT IS LIKE SO AWEZOME CAN'T WAIIIT FO DA NEXT IIIFOONNEEEE" but when it is actually released, we'll hear, "Christ, that sucks! What the hell, Apple?!" :rolleyes:

That being said, I am drooling and slobbering with anticipation as well, but I for one am not going to be disappointed in the slightest. :D

[argor]

[QUOTE=winterspan;7318780]
The single-core Cortex-A8 --- which is basically the predecessor to the Cortex-A9 --- has not even been integrated yet in a smartphone that is currently available on the market /QUOTE]
. yes true in the US market
but there are some smartphone out in Europa and japan that use it
but it are not many that out there rite now
but we will see many CortexA8 based phone from like of palm(palm pre)
in the sumer
maybe one from apple
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=630548
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=650822

[branjosef]

My expectations are low and I see dual core but only one working at a time. I see them making it so you have to turn off the phone and then back on to switch between them because that would keep in line with their other products because apple cant seem to do anything right and seem to think that they can offer great products but without full functionality so that they can rake in the dough but without providing full power like "Its morphing time" power when instead they could take the "Do you smell what the rock is cooking?" type of hardware and really accelerate it to the level of level 20. Wow I have no idea what I meant by all that. What a long sentence. I guess I basically just dont want them to f_ck it up if they introduce a dual core iphone. Make it cool and functional without all the restrictions. You know..like a high class stripper.

[t0mat0]

Has there been any progress in elucidating anything on this for the CPU and GPU?

http://www.9to5mac.com/iphone-arm-cortex-a8

If Tegra's going elsewhere for Apple then that leaves what?

- Samsung ARM Cortex A8 S5PC100 or 110 - similar to the TI OMAP 3430.
- TI's OMAP3430 or similar
- Imaginations PowerVR SGX543MP so has to be multicore (multicore will be coming before April 2010 as per Kristof Beets, IMG's Business Development Manager April 2009 presentation at Eurographics (where OpenCL was also mentioned))
- Marvell PXA 168 ARM XScale or similar

If Tegra is likely going into another product other than Touch/iPhone for Apple, what alternatives are there? We've seen the Cortex-A9 chips announced Oct 2007, and by then ARM was saying the new chips had already been adopted by some of the company’s partners - 17 odd months ago.


Imagination Technologies
How close is Apple to Imagination Technologies? Could Apple get something to market earlier through a good connection with them?


Jan 08 - Appleinside talks of an Apple connection
April 08 - AppleInsider report "confirmed a secret plan between Imagination and Samsung, speculating the aim may be to build an unmatchable platform for gaming and video playback"
The next generation of iPhone appears set to claim exclusive access to advanced graphics core and video decoding technology, thanks to a secret licensing deal between Apple, mobile graphics leader Imagination Technologies, and Samsung, the iPhone's ARM 'system on a chip' manufacturer.
Sept 08 - Licensing deal
Dec 08 (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/12/18/apple_finally_outed_as_mysterious_powervr_licensee.html) - Snap share buy up of 3% or so of Imagination Technologies (a cash injection helping Imagination mass produce some new components?)
March 09 - Imagination Technologies launched the SGX543MP family (http://roymitsuoka.blogspot.com/2009/03/apple-and-imagination-technologies.html)


If Imagination was saying that a multicore would come in less than 12 months, and already stressing OpenCL a bit, it looks a cert to have multi-core by v4 iPhone. So what does the multi-year, multi-use licensing agreement for use of Imagination’s current and future POWERVR graphics and video intellectual property cores hold for the upcoming successor to the iPhone 3G?

"As we know, Snow Leopard is a highly-optimised computer operating system, what we haven’t yet been made aware of is just how many of the improvements deployed in the OS will also be migrated to the mobile version of the software, as used in iPhone."

OpenCL in iPhone this year or next?

[wizard]

Has there been any progress in elucidating anything on this for the CPU and GPU?

Not to state the obvious but wouldn't you think that Apple will keep this all secret as long as they can.


http://www.9to5mac.com/iphone-arm-cortex-a8

If Tegra's going elsewhere for Apple then that leaves what?

The obvious likely path is a custom designed Apple chip either A8 or A9 based.


- Samsung ARM Cortex A8 S5PC100 or 110 - similar to the TI OMAP 3430.
- TI's OMAP3430 or similar
- Imaginations PowerVR SGX543MP so has to be multicore (multicore will be coming before April 2010 as per Kristof Beets, IMG's Business Development Manager April 2009 presentation at Eurographics (where OpenCL was also mentioned))
- Marvell PXA 168 ARM XScale or similar

If Tegra is likely going into another product other than Touch/iPhone for Apple, what alternatives are there? We've seen the Cortex-A9 chips announced Oct 2007, and by then ARM was saying the new chips had already been adopted by some of the company’s partners - 17 odd months ago.


Imagination Technologies
How close is Apple to Imagination Technologies? Could Apple get something to market earlier through a good connection with them?

I'd say very close. So close that they can influence the GPU design team to support OpenCL.




Jan 08 - Appleinside talks of an Apple connection
April 08 - AppleInsider report "confirmed a secret plan between Imagination and Samsung, speculating the aim may be to build an unmatchable platform for gaming and video playback"

Sept 08 - Licensing deal
Dec 08 (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/12/18/apple_finally_outed_as_mysterious_powervr_licensee.html) - Snap share buy up of 3% or so of Imagination Technologies (a cash injection helping Imagination mass produce some new components?)
March 09 - Imagination Technologies launched the SGX543MP family (http://roymitsuoka.blogspot.com/2009/03/apple-and-imagination-technologies.html)


If Imagination was saying that a multicore would come in less than 12 months, and already stressing OpenCL a bit, it looks a cert to have multi-core by v4 iPhone. So what does the multi-year, multi-use licensing agreement for use of Imagination’s current and future POWERVR graphics and video intellectual property cores hold for the upcoming successor to the iPhone 3G?

"As we know, Snow Leopard is a highly-optimised computer operating system, what we haven’t yet been made aware of is just how many of the improvements deployed in the OS will also be migrated to the mobile version of the software, as used in iPhone."

OpenCL in iPhone this year or next?

It's a waiting game as there have been no significant leaks or announcements.


Dav

[Bye Bye Baby]

I wonder if 3.0 is based on SL or on Leopard?

That would be interesting if 3.0 is the same sort of progress as SL is for the Mac.

[t0mat0]

Not to state the obvious but wouldn't you think that Apple will keep this all secret as long as they can.
The obvious likely path is a custom designed Apple chip either A8 or A9 based.
I'd say very close. So close that they can influence the GPU design team to support OpenCL.
It's a waiting game as there have been no significant leaks or announcements.
Dav

I'd agree - IMG kept the licensing deal schtum for months regarding Samsung/Apple. The stock buyup was unforeseen.
Who knows how far back Apple has gone with Nvidia and Imagination Techonologies regarding OpenCL. High level acknowledgement, if not involvement from both:

Tony King-Smith, VP of Marketing at Imagination Technologies: “Imagination is delighted to have been involved in the authoring of OpenCL, which we see as a significant development for the future of GP-GPU based computing for multimedia.”

Tony Tamasi, Senior VP of Technical Marketing at NVIDIA: “OpenCL adds fuel to the most exciting parallel computational revolution of our generation – GPU Computing. It also provides another powerful way to harness the enormous processing capabilities of our CUDA-based GPUs on multiple platforms.”

Michael McCool, founder and Chief Scientist at RapidMind: “As a provider of a high-level parallel programming platform, RapidMind is excited about the availability of a new standard for targeting compute devices through a single API. The low-level access to a variety of devices provided by OpenCL will allow our platform to expand to new devices more quickly than ever before.”

Just look at Rapidmind (http://www.rapidmind.net/) and their PR (http://www.rapidmind.net/News-Nov10-08-LLVM-OpenCL.php) releases (http://www.rapidmind.net/product.php)

A "development and runtime platform that enables single-threaded, manageable applications that fully leverage multi-core processors. With RapidMind, developers continue to write code in standard C++ and use their existing skills, tools and processes and the RapidMind platform then “parallelizes” across multiple cores."

Will be intersting to follow their blog (http://blogs.rapidmind.com/), and see if they're around at at WWDC, if not talking more prior to SIGGRAPH in August.


With OpenCL (http://www.khronos.org/opencl/) specification announced, then 6 months later validated to 1.0, they've already got some drivers out, and will have had another 6 months since December by WWDC.W e've only seen OpenCL in relation so fate to multi-core CPUs and GPUs, but they also mention "Cell-type architectures and other parallel processors such as DSPs."

HPC (http://www.hpcwire.com/blogs/OpenCL_On_the_Fast_Track_33608199.html):If they succeed, that's got to be some kind of industry spec development record -- basically from prototype to final in 6 months. I think the IEEE study group that was working on the 40/100 Gbps Ethernet standards took that long just to decide on the seating arrangement.


Would be interesting to go through the list of those Khronos members (http://www.khronos.org/members/promoters) announced as participating with OpenCL ( .e.g 3DLABS, AMD, Apple, ARM, Barco, Broadcom, Codeplay, Electronic Arts, Ericsson, Freescale, HI, IBM, Intel, Imagination Technologies, Kestrel Institute, Motorola, Movidia, Nokia, NVIDIA, QNX, RapidMind, Samsung, Seaweed, Takumi, TI & Umeå University.) and see what angles these companies are coming from.
e.g.


ARM - Provider of embedded RISC microprocessors, peripherals and system-on-chip (SoC) designs
Freescale Semiconductor - Embedded processors (microcontrollers, DSPs, Comms processors); currently focused on providing products to the automotive, networking and wireless communications industries.
Imagination Technologies Group - develops, licenses and supplies market-leading 2D/3D graphics, DV, DSP, audio & speech technologies Intel - Larrabee? The PR stuff highlights OpenMAX - API to help comprehensive streaming media ("The OpenMAX API will be shipped with processors to enable library and codec implementers to rapidly and effectively make use of the full acceleration potential of new silicon - regardless of the underlying hardware architecture.") (Has anyone really heard about OpenMAX before? Just wondering).
Samsung Electronics - the world's largest producer of color monitors, color TVs, memory chips, TFT-LCDs and VCRs.
- will use OpenGL ES and OpenMAX to implement solution involving graphics and multimedia applications for its various products and solutions.
Texas Instruments - provides innovative DSP and analog technologies, and also Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions.


Nvidia demo'd the OpenMAX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMAX) IL 1.0 standard back in 2006 (http://www.design-reuse.com/news/12285/khronos-openmax-il-1-0-specification-standardized-integration-codecs-into-embedded-media-frameworks.html) - "The OpenMAX IL 1.0 (Integration Layer) specification defines media component interfaces to enable the rapid integration of accelerated codecs into streaming media frameworks on embedded devices. OpenMAX IL is the first of three layers of the overall OpenMAX standard that will provide comprehensive streaming media codec and application portability by enabling accelerated multimedia components to be developed, integrated, and programmed across multiple operating systems and silicon platforms. "

"OpenMAX IL will enable NVIDIA to put the full power of our advanced video, audio, and imaging silicon into the hands of software developers via a non-proprietary, open standard," said Michael Rayfield, general manager of the handheld GPU business unit at NVIDIA. "NVIDIA is a major contributor to the development of OpenMAX, and we are committed to provide leading-edge handheld media acceleration solutions through open standards."

Is this something Apple would get into? (The DL part at least?) -
OpenMAX is supported by TI in it's OMAP and OMAP Vox platforms. Nvidia supports, there are OpenMAX DSP functions for ARM11 and Cortex-8. And it's turning up more recently for Symbian - article here (http://www.symbianone.com/content/view/6031/)



I wonder if 3.0 is based on SL or on Leopard?

That would be interesting if 3.0 is the same sort of progress as SL is for the Mac.

Kristof Beets was talking OpenCL at the April conference. OpenCL is SL.
video editing ? SL's Quicktime X (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb4SrJwDmp4&feature=related)
MobileMe/youtube video sharing? SL
Multicore POWER VR? Points to SL usage
Microsoft Exchange Support?


DSP & OpenCL
Regarding DSP (Digital Signal Processing) and OpenCl - anyone have any ideas where that would go? I've seen the Register mentions you could use it to handle specialized tasks for which it was created - audio processing, for example. (XMOS link?) 7353143


As a tidbit, the same article says "After the tutorial, Nvidia's Trevett told The Reg that Intel's Larrabee crew - the engineers creating that GPU/CPU hybrid - are deeply involved in the evolving OpenCL spec."

Why would Nvidia, with the seeminglybad blood (http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/25/nvidia-throws-another-punch-sez-larrabee-wouldve-been-hot-in-2/) happening regarding the lawsuit, drop this in? Would Intel backdown on GPU, and let Nvidia do their thing within an Intel chip? 2011 will be fun! It's big for Intel - "the tera-scale research program has been the single largest investment in Intel's technology research and has partnered with more than 400 universities, DARPA and companies such as Microsoft and HP to move the industry in this direction." So it's not just a pintsized Pentium processor...

We're beginning to wonder if these guys aren't just passing disses while sharing a cold one afterwards just to get attention, but being that it's more fun to envision suits from rival firms intensely angry with one another, we'll just keep believing this actually isn't a joke.


And (http://www.vpac.org/files/Brook+OpenCLLarrabee.pdf.) potentially profitable - Nvidia's got bounties on new software -
Their GPU Ventures Program (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/10/nvidia_venture_program/) giving $0.5m to $5m (£0.36 to £3.6m) a project...