Imagination Technologies Starts Licensing Next Gen iPad/iPhone GPU
Imagination Technologies, the company behind the iPhone and iPad's PowerVR graphic processor unit (GPU), has announced that six "key partners" have already selected their next generation PowerVR Series 6 GPU (codename: Rogue) for licensing. The partners include ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments, MediaTek as well as three "yet to be announced" licensees.
Apple has long used Imagination Technologies' GPUs to power their mobile devices and is likely one of the unnamed licensees. Besides being a major customer, Apple is also an investor in the company with ownership pegged at 9.5% back in 2009. The iPad 2 currently uses the PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU. Combined with the A5 processor, Apple claimed the iPad 2 has 9x faster graphics than the original model. This upcoming GPU is said to deliver another significant performance boost for mobile graphics.
The press release is devoid of any hard details and offers just some vague promises of future performance.
The POWERVR Series6 GPU family, which delivers unrivalled GFLOPS per mm2 and per mW for all APIs, delivers not only a clear technology advantage and exceptional roadmap, driven by one of the largest teams of graphics engineers in the world, but also an extensive ecosystem of third party developers which has created hundreds of thousands of apps optimised for POWERVR enabled devices to date.
The new graphics processor will be backward compatible with the PowerVR SGX GPU which presently powers the iPad and iPhone, so will be an easy transition in future models.
A few numbers were detailed back in February during Mobile World Congress. According to a press release from ST-Ericsson, the Series 6 PowerVR chip will push over 350 million "real" polygons per second when used in their Nova A9600 SOC. That particular chip is said to be "sampling" in 2011.
Based on the usual lead time for these announcements, it seems unlikely we'll see these new GPUs in Apple's products until 2012 at the earliest. This more powerful graphics processor may help support the additional pixels of the rumored "Retina" display in the next iPad.
Popular Stories
Significant changes are expected to arrive with Apple's fourth-generation iPhone SE, in terms of both design and hardware, MacRumors has learned. The iPhone SE 4, known internally under the codename Ghost, is expected to receive a new design derived almost entirely from the base model iPhone 14. According to our sources, the iPhone SE 4 will use a modified version of the iPhone 14 chassis...
Apple today released iOS 17.0.2 and iPadOS 17.0.2 updates, with the software coming five days after the releases of iOS 17.0.1 and iPadOS 17.0.1. Today's iOS 17.0.2 and iPadOS 17.0.2 updates arrive as build 21A351 and can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Note that iOS 17.0.2 was previously made available for iPhone...
Wednesday September 27, 2023 1:57 pm PDT by
Juli CloverJust a week after releasing iOS 17, Apple has seeded the first beta of iOS 17.1 to developers. iOS 17.1 adds some features that Apple promised were coming to iOS 17 in the future, plus it refines and improves some existing features. This guide covers everything new in the first iOS 17.1 beta. Apple Music Favorites You can favorite songs, albums, playlists, and artists in the iOS 17.1...
iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max overheating concerns continue to make headlines this week, with the topic highlighted by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Both of the reports document anecdotal complaints from customers, and outline potential causes, but it's unclear how many devices are actually affected. Bloomberg said the overheating could be caused or compounded by the iPhone's setup...
Complaints about heat issues with the iPhone 15 Pro models are not related to TSMC's 3-nanometer node that was used for the A17 Pro chip, according to well-respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo says that overheating could be caused by "compromises made in the thermal system design" that allowed Apple to cut down on the weight of the iPhone 15 Pro models. Kuo says that the reduced heat...
Apple added a USB-C port to the iPhone 15 lineup this year, allowing it to work with USB-C cables, USB-C power banks, and more. It turns out that some USB-C battery packs are not working properly with Apple's iPhone 15, resulting in charging issues. As highlighted on Reddit and the MacRumors forums, not all existing USB-C power banks can be used with the iPhone 15 models, perhaps due to the...
In macOS Sonoma, Game Mode prioritizes CPU and GPU performance for gaming purposes on Macs. For those unfamiliar with Game Mode, Apple on Tuesday published a support document providing more information on how to use the new feature. Game Mode optimizes your gaming experience by giving your game the highest priority access to your CPU and GPU, lowering usage for background tasks. And it...
Top Rated Comments
yep. since the A4 and A5 are package deals. processor + gpu + ram. If they upgrade the gpu, they'll have to upgrade the whole processing unit. So A6.
awrn
Fail. We can't tell if Apple is ready for it. Example is iPhone 4's retina display, how much do we know that Apple can mass produce those displays last year? If Gizmodo didn't get the prototype, we're clueless all along. The only rumor we know is that microscope thing. ;)
Most of the discussion of a "retina" iPad assumes that the high rez screen would be a feature of the mainstream model. It seems entirely possible that the retina display would be featured on a premium, flagship model of the iPad, alongside a standard rez version. This would be similar to the way Apple has continued to market the older iPhone models. Pricing and availability of the premium iPad would be help Apple match demand to the availability of the new display components.
You are talking today. I am talking tomorrow. The moment such a screen is fluidly manufactured, it will be used in mass-manufacture devices. That could happen anytime: the tech is designed and manufactured, it just needs stable mass-production.
As for Apple not changing "mid-stream", that is the most fatuous thing I've read. Apple has commonly disrupted (supposedly) regular, periodic updates for a variety of reasons. There is no reason to believe they can't do what they need or want to meet market demand or technical advancements.