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Apple's former GPU maker Imagination agrees to £550 million sale
Losing Apple as a customer can be rough for a supplier, as Imagination Technologies found out. In April, the UK chipmaker announced that the folks in Cupertino planned to develop their own mobile GPUs and would no longer rely on its PowerVR tech for iPhones and iPads. The A11 Bionic chip inside Apple's new iPhone 8 series and upcoming iPhone X is the company's first-ever self-designed GPU. While still in dispute with Apple over the breakup plans, Imagination lost over 70 percent of its value and put itself up for sale. Now, it has found a buyer in Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, a China-backed fund. Recently, Donald Trump used his presidential power to block the fund from completing a $1.3 billion buyout of a US chipmaker, Lattice Semiconductor, over security concerns. Canyon Bridge is snapping up Imagination (minus its MIPS arm, which is being sold to other investors for $65 million) for £550 million ($743 million) in a move that it says will not cut staff or move the company's headquarters.
Imagination puts itself up for sale after being dumped by Apple
Once the world learned that Apple will design its own GPU for upcoming iPhones and iPads instead of using Imagination Technologies PowerVR tech, the UK company quickly lost 70 percent of its value. While it's still in "dispute" with Apple over the breakup, it already put two of its units, MIPS and Ensigma up for sale, and today announced that the entire company is open to being acquired. Its board of directors said in a press release that "it has received interest from a number of parties for a potential acquisition of the whole Group...and is engaged in preliminary discussions with potential bidders."
Splitting up with Apple is a chipmaker's nightmare
Apple is such a powerful company that, for third-party suppliers, it's hard not to become reliant on the cash that it pays you. But when Apple says that it's done, choosing to move whatever technology you provide in house, the results can be really painful.
Apple is building its own GPU for the iPhone and iPad
Imagination Technologies is famous for one thing: it's the company that provides the graphics for the iPhone. But today, Imagination announced that its longstanding relationship with Apple is coming to an abrupt end. In a statement, the outfit has conceded that Apple will replace the PowerVR GPU at the heart of its iOS devices with a graphics chip of its own design.
MediaTek's revamped 10-core chip will be hitting phones in Q2
MediaTek's first 10-core chips, the Helio X20 and X25, didn't exactly storm the smartphone market last year, but the company isn't ready to give up just yet. Following MediaTek's initial announcement back in September, the new 10-core Helio X30 is now finally entering mass production, with the first devices expected to arrive some time in Q2 this year. For those who aren't already familiar with this piece of silicon, the X30 is MediaTek's first move into 10nm fabrication, allowing it to join the likes of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 and Samsung's Exynos 9 Series 8895.
High-powered graphics chips are coming to cheap smartphones
The company that created the iPhone's graphics chip wants to bring its pixel-crunching expertise to dirt-cheap smartphones. Imagination Technologies is launching the PowerVR 8XE, a new series of chips that offer vastly better graphics for far less cash. The hardware's designed to support the new Vulkan API, which promises graphically intensive mobile games without the usual jerkiness or slowdowns. Imagination's pitch is that rather than just building ever-bigger slices of silicon, it's learning to do a lot more with a lot less. In addition to dirt-cheap smartphones, the chips will be used in cheapie set-top boxes and cars.
Imagination's new graphics tech brings realistic lighting to mobile games
Even the prettiest mobile games tend to look a bit ugly, with simple lighting effects that remind you that you're not using a more powerful console or PC. If Imagination Technologies has its way, though, those pocket-sized games will be truer to life. Its newly unveiled Wizard architecture brings ray tracing, a technique that calculates the path of every light beam in a 3D scene, to the company's PowerVR mobile graphics cores. You can see the resulting visual boost in the picture above: every light casts a shadow, glass is more realistic and reflections accurately portray the surrounding world. The first core to use Wizard is the high-end GR6500, which companies can license for their mobile processors. Imagination hasn't named customers, but we'd note that Apple and Intel are among two of its clients -- don't be surprised if your next iPhone or Windows tablet is a graphics powerhouse.
China's Allwinner also has an octa-core chip, touts powerful graphics
Samsung, MediaTek, Huawei and even Qualcomm are now in the octa-core SoC game, but there's always space for more. The latest member is China's Allwinner Technology, who's best known for making the chipsets inside many low-end devices. Like most of its competitors, Allwinner's UltraOcta A80 silicon (pictured above on a development board) uses ARM's big.LITTLE heterogeneous multi-processing design, meaning it can simultaneously run on all eight cores -- four low-power Cortex-A7 and four high-end Cortex-A15. The chip also features Imagination Technologies' 64-core PowerVR G6230 GPU, which promises to deliver "a twofold increase in graphics" performance when compared to Allwinner's previous flagship SoC, the A31 series. We'll spare you from all the nitty-gritty, but you can learn more in the source links below. Expect to see the UltraOcta A80 in affordable devices "in the next few months."
MediaTek's MT8135 SoC does dual-core big.LITTLE MP, packs PowerVR Series6 GPU
It'll be a while before MediaTek's true octa-core SoC makes its glorious arrival, but for the time being, the company's unveiling something just as interesting -- and perhaps more practical. The new MT8135 announced today is a "quad-core" SoC aimed at "the middle- to high-end tier of the tablet OEM market." We quote "quad-core," because it actually consists of two clusters: dual Cortex-A15 cores and dual Cortex-A7 cores. But the good news is that unlike the original big.LITTLE configuration where only one cluster can operate at any given time (depending on how heavy the workload is), MediaTek's confirmed that it has implemented big.LITTLE MP ("MP" as in heterogeneous multi-processing) in the MT8135, meaning both the A15 and the A7 clusters can operate simultaneously. Another highlight of this MT8135 is that it'll be one of the first SoCs -- alongside LG's H13 (which we've seen first-hand), Renesas' APE6 and Renesas' R-Car H2 -- to come with Imagination Technologies' almighty PowerVR Series6 GPU. Specifically, this is the PowerVR G6200 which, as part of the MT8135, can apparently deliver "up to four times more ALU (arithmetic logic unit) horsepower" than the Series5XT GPU on the cheaper, quad-A7 MT8125. And unsurprisingly, the MT8135 gets the same Miracast wireless video goodie given to the MT8125; though it's also worth noting that the latter only supports LPDDR2 RAM instead of the more powerful LPDDR3. Sadly, there's no further information regarding availability, but you can kill some time by checking out more technical details in the video (with benchmarks; even though Qualcomm's been mysteriously left out) and press releases after the break.
MediaTek unveils quad-core MT8125 processor for budget tablets
MediaTek told us to only expect its tablet-focused SoC in the summer, but it's clearly something of a keener: we're already looking at the part today. The new MT8125 builds on the familiar formula of a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor and PowerVR Series5XT graphics, with most of the improvement coming from a higher 1.5GHz clock speed. That extra grunt helps the chip handle up to a 1,920 x 1,200 display on top of earlier support for 13MP cameras and 1080p videos. Focusing on tablets gives MediaTek some freedom in configurations, too -- it can offer the SoC with basic EDGE cellular data, full HSPA+ or WiFi alone. Customers won't have to wait long to try the MT8125 when tablets like Lenovo's IdeaTab S6000 series should be using it now, although there's no word on how much of that hardware will reach the US.
The Daily Roundup for 01.14.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Samsung's next-gen Exynos 5 Octa rumored to have only current-gen PowerVR graphics
There's nothing we can concretely do or say about the Exynos 5 Octa until it's in a device and in our hands. It's all just educated guesswork in the meantime, but that happens to be something AnandTech is rather good at. That site has reached the conclusion, based on "numerous sources," that the Octa probably uses a PowerVR 544MP3 GPU clocked at 533MHz. If true, this implies that the ARM Mali T-604 used in Exynos Dual devices like the Sammy Chromebook somehow couldn't meet Octa's needs, and that the higher-specced T-658 perhaps wasn't ready. It also suggests that Octa's graphical and GPU compute performance might lie somewhere between that of the third-gen iPad (A5X) and the fourth-gen (A6X). Frankly, a newer GPU would have been more exciting, especially given the appearance of PowerVR Series6 at CES, but big.LITTLE should still give us plenty to talk about when the new eight-core chip finally arrives.
Imagination Technologies' PowerVR Series6 mobile GPU debuts at CES, we go eyes-on
Last week, Imagination Technologies gave us a glimpse of its next-gen PowerVR Series6 mobile GPU and its prowess with OpenGL ES 3.0. That demo didn't showcase Series6's full potential, as the company could only let us see a test chip on an FPGA board that could deliver only 1 GB/s of bandwidth -- one tenth of the GPUs performance capability. Now that Imagination Technologies' first Series6 partner, LG, has given the go ahead, the time has come to see what Series6 can really do on an optimized board destined for an HDTV. In addition to the Series6, the company also demoed an older Series5XT GPU that's been upgraded with some recently released API extensions. Those APIs are meant to breathe new life into Imagination Technologies' older GPUs and give them some of the rendering features found in the Series6. Interest piqued? You can see the GPUs do their thing in our demo video after the break. Update: Imagination Technologies' blog has identified LG's SoC as the H13.
OpenCL mod for the Kindle Fire HD reveals untapped graphics potential (hands-on video)
As neat as the Kindle Fire HD already is, just a few dinky tweaks could turn it into so much more -- a platform for true physics-based gaming, for example, or even for surprisingly fast photo manipulation. How come? Because both the 8.9-inch and 7-inch versions of the Android-based slate come with a graphics engine that can handle OpenCL acceleration. It certainly won't work out of the box, but Amazon has been working quietly with Imagination Technologies -- the folks behind the tablet's PowerVR GPU -- to try it out. The demo after the break is subtle, perhaps, but it's fluid, detailed and goes far beyond anything that a stock device can achieve. It also proves that, in certain circumstances, OpenCL has the power to boost frame rates by 50 percent while simultaneously lowering power consumption by the same proportion. Read on for more.
PowerVR Series6 mobile GPUs are almost here, we go eyes-on with a test chip (video)
Imagination Technologies is on a high right now. Throughout 2012, the company's PowerVR graphics processors continued to monopolize the iPhone and iPad as well as appearing in (late 2011) Android flagships, the PlayStation Vita and even the first Clover Trail-powered Windows 8 tablets. But you know what? That's old news, because all those devices run current-gen PowerVR Series5 silicon. Most new top-end devices in 2013 and 2014 will either contain the latest Mali GPUs from rival ARM, or they'll pack PowerVR Series6, aka Rogue. This latter chip is currently being developed by at least eight different smartphone and tablet manufacturers and is expected to make a good bit of noise at CES next week. But who's going to wait that long if they don't absolutely have to? To get a fuller understanding of what awaits us in the coming weeks and months, we scoped out a Rogue test chip at Imagination's sparkly new HQ just outside of London, UK. The test silicon doesn't represent the true power of Series6 because it's running on an FPGA board that severely limits its bandwidth, but it's still able to show off one crucial advantage: namely the ability to run OpenGL ES 3.0 games and apps. This API is all about improving mobile graphics through making smarter use of GPU compute, without annoying the battery, and the three demos after the break show just how it pulls that off. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Allwinner throws A20 dual-core and A31-quad-core processors into ARM fray
Whimsically monikered Chinese chip-maker Allwinner has added a pair of ARM Cortex-A7 processors to its lineup supporting Android 4.2 or higher systems. The A20 is a dual-core design with 512KB L2 cache, dual-core Mali 400 graphics and 2160p HD video playback support, while the quad-core A31 packs a 1MB cache, PowerVR SGX 544 graphics and UHDTV (4k) video decoding talents. The A20 is pin compatible with its Linux-hobbyist favorite sibling, the A10 -- meaning devices such as the MK802 mini-PC using that chip could likely be upgraded by manufacturers on the cheap. However, the more powerful A31 seems destined for higher-end Android or Windows RT devices only, considering its beefier PowerVR graphics. On top of the extra zip, licensor Imagination Technologies keeps its source code cards close to the chest -- likely ruling out Linux for that chip.
Imagination Technologies snaps up CPU designer MIPS in an attempt to wrestle ARM
Looks like we can kiss goodbye to any lingering politeness in the rivalry between these two UK chip houses, because the smaller one has just embarked on a cheeky expansion. Having been known mainly for its PowerVR graphics processors, not least in many Apple products, Imagination Tech could potentially push into the CPU arena too, through its $60 million acquisition of MIPS Technologies. Just like ARM, MIPS designs low-power RISC processors for consumer electronics, but it has generally focused on smaller chips for devices like routers and TVs rather than smartphones and tablets. In addition to a portfolio of 82 exclusive patents, a squad of 160 MIPS engineers will now be transplanted to Imagination, where they'll no doubt be debriefed and reassigned to conquering the world. Meanwhile, in some sort of flanking move, ARM has paid a far higher sum of $170 million to gain access to a number of other MIPS patents. [Thanks, Michael]
Late 2012 iPad carries new PowerVR SGX 554MP4 graphics, muscles ahead in video speed
It's well established that the A6X chip in the fourth-generation iPad is about twice as fast as its predecessor in pure number crunching, but how about those reportedly doubled graphics amid some increasingly fierce competition? Thanks to some help from Kishonti, AnandTech has learned that Apple may still have an ace up its sleeve. The new tablet carries a new, quad-core PowerVR SGX554MP4 with twice the raw potential as the already quick 543MP4 graphics in the A5X. While that doesn't always lead to a literal doubling of 3D performance, it unambiguously puts the new new iPad on top in GLBenchmark, with even the imminent Nexus 10's new Mali-T604 video left in the middle of a large pack. We're somewhat surprised when the Samsung-made Nexus is using a brand new chip architecture that many had thought would represent a fundamental leap in speed. Visuals aren't the only factors in buying tablets, so take the results with the appropriate grains of salt; if gaming or sheer responsiveness matters most, however, there's now a clear frontrunner.
Apple A6 investigation shows highly customized dual-core, triple-GPU layout
There's been a significant mystery lingering around the A6 processor found in the iPhone 5, even as it became clearer that Apple was veering further than usual from the basic ARM formula. A microscope-level inspection by Chipworks and iFixit is at last identifying the key elements of the 32nm, Samsung-assembled chip and revealing just how far it strays from the beaten path. The examination confirms earlier suspicions of a dual-core design with triple-core graphics -- it's how that design is shaped that makes the difference. Apple chose to lay out the two processor cores by hand rather than let a computer do the work, as most ARM partners do. The procedure is expensive and slow, but also gives the A6 a better-optimized design; it explains why the chip is noticeably faster than much of its competition without needing the brute force approaches of higher clock speeds or extra cores. Some mysteries remain, such as the exact PowerVR graphics that are at work, but it's evident Apple now has the design talent and resources to speed up mobile devices on its own terms rather than wait for off-the-shelf layouts like the Cortex-A15.
MediaTek MT6577 helps push dual-core Android 4.0 smartphones under $200 contract-free
It isn't hard to get an Android 4.0 phone under $200 if you're willing to sign your life away with a contract. Getting one that's worthwhile at that same figure contract-free, however, requires some jumping through hoops. MediaTek must be an acrobat, as it just released the MT6577, a chip design for the most entry level of smartphones. The part's frugal focus doesn't keep it from stuffing in a dual-core, 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, a PowerVR SGX series 5 for graphics and an HSPA modem for 3G. Those specifications would only have been cutting-edge in 2011, but they're very speedy for a starter device in 2012 -- fast enough to drive Google's OS on a 720p screen while supporting 1080p video. The MT6577 is a drop-in replacement for its MT6575 ancestor, and it's accordingly going to be used very quickly by "leading global customers" this summer. Knowing MediaTek's most recent clients, that could soon lead to a sea of very affordable phones from Gigabyte, ZTE and others that have no problems eating an Ice Cream Sandwich.
