New high-end ARM processors could be powering cellphones by year end
By Donald Melanson 
posted Mar 23rd 2009 2:58PM
posted Mar 23rd 2009 2:58PM
ARM has been talking up its Mali-200 and Mali-400 processors for a little while now, but according to the company's graphics product manager, Remi Pedersen, they're now finally on track to land in some actual products, and the first cellphones using 'em could show up as soon as winter 2009. While Pedersen unfortunately didn't have anything to say about those phones themselves, he did make some pretty bold claims about the processors, which are able to run OpenGL ES 2.0 and can supposedly pump out 16 million triangles per second and 275 million pixels per second. Those numbers apparently apply to both the Mali-200 and Mali-400, although the later is multicore scalable (up to quad-core at 300MHz), and even able to produce 1080p resolutions. To bring all that home, ARM has whipped up a port of the original Project Gotham Racing game to demo at GDC, which reportedly runs just like the original Xbox game performance-wise, but "feature-wise it looks like an Xbox 360 title."
That sounds Pretty Sweet right there!
Uh yeah if you were really are a fan of N64 graphics. PowerVR just press released their next SGX chip, which is a bit more capable. For reference, lets throw in the PS2 as well.
133 million polygons per second powervr v. 16 million triangles per second for arm v. 37m for PS2 (1 texture)
4Gpixels per second v. 275 million pixels per second for arm v. 2.53Gpixels for PS2
And thats for the entry level 4 core model running 200MHz. Like ARM, they claim it'll scale, only they claim a lot more than just a MHz bump: to 16 cores (from 4) at 400MHz (from 200MHz), with nearly linear gains. Take the above numbers and multiply them by 8.
You'll also note that no one implements the current MALI.
http://eetimes.eu/uk/215900627
PowerVR is way ahead of MALI.
Mali is a big joke.
I'd like a phone with that power expandable storage and HDMI out. It would be my phone/ home theater phone
Nvidia Tegra.
They showed HDMI out working with 1080p video (blu-ray rip) in 2007.
Its not out yet somehow, but I think it will be by summer.
TI OMAP and Creative Labs Zii already have silicon that can do this. The next gen PowerVR have enough pixel fill rate to be able to run dual 1080P displays without breaking a sweat in full 3d. Its just a matter of time, and I fully agree, it will change everything.
It actually makes those ridiculous pocket projectors seem like they have a point.
And next year nvidia will demo yet another Tegra, no plans for production.
"although the later is multicore scalable (up to quad-core at 300MHz)"
you missed a t on latter... oohhh
iPhone HD anyone?
oh wait... Android is ARM based.... Andoid + Quadcore = Sweeetnesssss
oh wait... almost any cellphone in the market is ARM based.
:-P
ARM is coming out with some very interesting stuff. OMAP4530 looks really interesting. I'm still waiting to play with an OMAP3530 :(
That's a TI product with an Imagination Technologies graphics core. This article refers to ARM graphics cores.
Yea, I was rambling. I wanted to edit, but I guess I would wait until someone chimed in. Specifically I was talking about Cortex A9 with the OMAP4530. Mali uses TBDR just like the SGX530 right?
Tegra runs OpenGL ES 2.0 smoothly and that's good enough for me. And also, you know you'll have good software/driver support from NVIDIA and the harmony that comes along.
So after Tegra is out, I'm done with waiting and will begin buying.
Dude you've been talking about Tegra forever! Where are the devices?
The other guy, huh? Nice to meet you, TareX. I've been waiting for Tegra-powered devices too.
NVIDIA had poor software/driver support for winmo devices using the NVIDIA GoForce 5500 GPU. What makes you think NVIDIA will do better this time?
@gm76
yes Goforce was a flunk on their behalf... a big one. But with Tegra, they already have been showing it off for 14 months and it appears fully functioning. It's just a matter of releasing it in the right time (everyone seems to save their best till June, to avoid ppl waiting out for the iPhone, and to jump on the hype)
There was no need to release it all that time, as it was miles ahead of existing phones, and companies already had truckloads of Qualcomm processors they needed to get rid of...
I would be astounded if nvidia can get their software/driver act together to get Tegra into any kind of usable state. Even PowerVR's abysmal driver support is better; there are finally Linux users running OpenGL ES accelerated BeagleBoards.
I think right now everyone has their hopes banked on Gallium3D being able to provide a solid graphics base, and the SoC builders being enlightened enough to release specs on their 3d units (of which nvidia has been a perpetual hold out), and all this is just to play catch up to the supreme work Apple did with llvm accelerated OpenGL ES for the iphone. nVidia is totally going to miss the boat unless they figure out how to work with the ecosystem they're trying to break in to.
New Nintendo handheld possibly? Not the DSi stuff.
not before AT LEAST a year. DSi isn't even here yet.
I was just about to say that. haha.
1080P on my cellphone? Why?
Maybe somebody will make an iPhone compatible movie projector... that's the only reason I can imagine needing it.
Connect it to a TV and watch video, or (given a scalable OS) connect it to monitor and keyboard and use it as a PC.
Connect 1080p phone to a TV at your friend's and play back that movie/clip/video/whatever.
And Tegra records 720p video (NOT the same way Omnia HD, I hope). So you can play back those on the big-screen TV as well without copying/burning/any other additional moves.
Sounds good or sounds same as copy-paste and MMS? xD
1080P on your cellphone so you dont need your laptop, so everything you'd have on your laptop can be in your pocket always. The remaining concerns are normal sized keyboards and normal sized displays, but with standards like DisplayPort you get all the video and usb connectivity you'd need in one jack, so plugging in to a terminal would be very easy. For on the go use, fold up Bluetooth keyboards and pocket projects are already both the size of a pack of smokes, so the aggregate bundle is still smaller than an Atom mini-notebook, and more functional (it can be used in deployed "laptop" mode, or you can just use the phone itself, or you can plug in to a empty terminal). The question is really, why wouldnt you want your cellphone to be as capable as a computer?
incredible
*drool...*
symbian!
give me balls-to-the-wall 360 graphics on an android set and ill buy it R.I.G.H.T. N.O.W.
dont ask how but trust me. i'd have enough :)
you bet your ass it can run crysis at 30fps. itll run crysis, apocalypse, armageddon, the rapture, AND 3 ninjas kickback at -60-fps
Yup...
Cue in the rumors:
-PSP phone
-Zune phone
-XBOX phone
-Nokia reviving the next engage
-oh, and of course, iPhone, advertised as the even more funnest iPod ever ever.
Isn't the real issue RAM? Seems like a smoke and mirrors game to me. The iPhone can't even take advantage of its processing power because on average it has about 30-40 MB of free RAM for user run apps. That's the same amount of RAM smartphones had THREE years ago! Anyone with half a brain knows a high-end processor has no benefit unless manufacturers stop pumping out phones with a pathetic 128MB of RAM.
The real is ram; its ram bandwidth. Adding bigger ram is easy, allowing a hungry graphics processor to get at all the data it needs, that is a bigger problem.
ps2 ram = 32mb vram= 4mb
@Magallanes
ps2 ram vs. iPhone ram is not a fair argument. The ps2 does not run a full OS along with multiple other processes. It runs one game at one time. The iPhone can run one game no problem. But when trying to multitask -- Music, IM, webbrowser -- it simply can't handle it and dumps all of the processes.
1080P on your cellphone so you dont need your laptop, so everything you'd have on your laptop can be in your pocket always. The remaining concerns are normal sized keyboards and normal sized displays, but with standards like DisplayPort you get all the video and usb connectivity you'd need in one jack, so plugging in to a terminal would be very easy. For on the go use, fold up Bluetooth keyboards and pocket projects are already both the size of a pack of smokes, so the aggregate bundle is still smaller than an Atom mini-notebook, and more functional (it can be used in deployed "laptop" mode, or you can just use the phone itself, or you can plug in to a empty terminal). The question is really, why wouldnt you want your cellphone to be as capable as a computer?
The real question is, why, if without sacrificing battery life, wouldn't you want all your devices to be as powerful as can be well priced? Can't the "lolol 1080p on a phone/netbook" crowd imagine that within 2-3 years people will look back and laugh at them for being content with Intel Atom and a bad chipset that barely handles 720p?
But... but... but... does it run Doom???????
Count on me to get the new iPhone, definitely do not count on me to let it stay locked up if AT&T tries to bone me any harder than their bills already do..
No word on how many watts this chip will pull? Don't current ARM processors draw around 1/2 or 3/4 watt (the faster ones)?
...zii is more capable and yet you ragged on it like there was no tomorrow...