Second generation Mali graphics processors aim at tablets, smartphones and smart-TVs

August 07, 2012 // Nick Flaherty

ARM has launched the second generation of its Mali-T600 series graphics processing units (GPUs), improving the user experience for tablets, smartphones and smart-TVs.

Each of the products features a 50 percent performance increase and are the first to include Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC), a texture compression technique that originated from ARM. ASTC significantly optimizes GPU performance and increases battery life in devices and has now been adopted by the Khronos Group for open graphics standards.
Based on the Mali Midgard architecture, the second generation of the Mali-T600 Series comprises three GPUs - the Mali-T624, Mali-T628 and Mali-T678. Each product has been tuned to provide optimal performance and energy-efficiency for different end devices. The Mali-T624 and Mali-T628 products provide market leading graphics and GPU compute to smartphones and smart-TVs, while the Mali-T678 has been optimized to address the demands of the rapidly growing tablet market.
This enables improved energy-efficiency for current and new math intensive activities, such as computational photography to use computational methods of enhancing or extending digital photography and mult- perspective views. It will also enable real-time photo editing on mobile devices.
“People expect higher standards of visual computing on their smartphones, tablets and smart-TVs with seamless access to their digital world and personal content,” said Pete Hutton, general manager, Media Processing Division, ARM. “GPU compute enables this as it increases the range of functions mobile devices can perform within the available battery life. ARM continues to focus on system-wide optimization by integrating market leading CPU and GPU technologies to drive both high performance and energy-efficiency.”
The design of each new product addresses different performance points:
The Mali-T624 GPU offers scalability from one to four cores, whilst the Mali-T628 from one to eight cores provides up to twice the graphics and GPU compute performance of the Mali-T624, extending the graphics potential for smartphones and smart-TVs. These products provide breathtaking graphical displays for advanced consumer applications, such as 3D graphics, visual computing and real time photo editing for smartphones and smart-TVs.
The ARM Mali-T678 GPU offers the highest GPU compute performance available in the Mali-T600 Series of products, delivering a four-fold increase when compared with the Mali-T624 GPU through features such as increased ALU support. This brings a wide range of performance points to address the vibrant tablet market. The Mali-T678 offers energy-efficient high-end visual computing applications, such as computational photography, multi perspective views and augmented reality.
All products are designed to support OpenGL ES 1.1, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 3.0, DirectX 11 FL 9_3, DirectX 11, OpenCL 1.1 Full Profile and Google Renderscript compute.
www.arm.com/

Technical papers     

• High Voltage Surge Stoppers Ensure Reliable Operation During Power Surges
• AR RF/Microwave Instrumentation Field Analyzers
• 16-Bit, 100 kSPS Low Power Successive Approximation ADC System
• Replacing the Candle in the Candelabra

December 15, 2011 | Texas instruments | 222901974

Unique Ser/Des technology supports encrypted video and audio content with full duplex bi-directional control channel over a single wire interface.