ARM unveils three upgrades to Mali GPU line
updated 10:40 pm EDT, Mon August 6, 2012
T624, T628, T678 expected in devices in September 2013
Processor developer ARM has released three new designs for its second-generation graphics chip for use in tablets, smartphones, and televisions. The Mali T624, T628, and T678 have been added to the T600 line, and all include Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC), a newly-develioed method of optimizing GPU performance by using texture compression.
The new Mali-series GPUs supports most APIs to perform GPU computing in other parallel-intensive tasks, such as voice recognition and image editing. ARM's Steve Steele, product manager of ARM's media processing division, expects "things like HDR and manipulating images on the phone" to be improved with the new chipset. "Gaming physics engines can run more realistically and more efficiently."
The developer says ASTC is "revolutionary", and will allow software designers to use the same amount of data to describe higher detail, or use less data for the same amount of graphical fidelity. "From the consumer's point of view it's going to mean better battery life and higher image quality," said Steele. AMD hopes the technology will become an industry standard.
ARM estimates more than one in five Android devices have graphics processors using technology it designed. The first device predicted to boast one of the new processors is the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 in September 2013.
