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Increasing demand for advanced 3D user interfaces and image processing means that GPUs are a must-have for today’s high-definition home entertainment products, as well as traditional embedded graphics products like game consoles, navigation devices, smart phones and ultra-mobile computing devices.
Vivante is addressing this growing trend from its headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley. The company offers a comprehensive set of silicon-proven GPU solutions for cutting-edge mobile device and home entertainment applications. Its products include a wide variety of 2D and 2D/3D GPUs that are scalable, built on industry standards, and optimized for power, performance and size, so customers can cost-effectively differentiate their products.
Vivante’s Mobile Visual Reality™ and HD Visual Reality™ take computer graphics to the next level by bringing handheld and home entertainment screens to life. For 2D graphics, Vivante offers traditional 2D functionality and display controller along with an array of programmable 2D functionality that includes high quality image and video filter and scalar.
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Vivante’s high-quality image/video scalar with up to 9 x 9 tap filter.
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Vivante’s GPU brings DTV/STB/DVD applications to life.
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The above screenshot is taken from the 3DMarkMobile ES 2.0 Developers’ Edition benchmark
which highlights some differentiated features in Vivante’s GC series GPU powered products.
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Unified Shader Architecture
Vivante’s ScalarMorphic™ GPU architecture is a unified shader design that delivers industry-leading performance per milliwatt and performance per square millimeter, while managing bandwidth required for integration into embedded systems. Vivante’s technology is compliant with the Khronos Group™ cross-platform APIs for full-function 2D and 3D graphics on embedded systems including OpenGL® ES 2.0, OpenVG, and OpenGL® ES 1.1.
Vivante’s ScalarMorphic GPU architecture is designed from the ground up to combine the latest innovations in GPU architectures along with silicon area, bandwidth and power saving techniques. GPU pipelines have evolved over the past twenty years from fixed function pipelines, to discrete vertex and pixel (fragment) architectures, to unified shader architectures.
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Advantages of unified shader architectures include higher performance
and significant silicon area and power savings.
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Discrete shader architectures marked an incremental improvement over fixed function pipelines, enabling greater flexibility for application developers. However, discrete shader architectures are an inherently inefficient method of allocating computational resources. To reach the same performance as unified shader architectures, discrete shader architectures need to be capable of handling both worst case vertex and worst case pixel loads. In addition to the computational inefficiencies, discrete shader architectures can require up to two times the silicon area of a unified shader architecture capable of producing the same performance. Utilizing a ultra-threaded unified shader architecture is a key enabler for delivering maximum features and performance with minimal silicon area.
With an ultra-threaded unified pipeline and shader architecture, the Vivante ScalarMorphic GPU architecture is able to address the most critical challenges for embedded systems, including:
- Maximum performance and features per square millimeter
- Minimum power consumption
- Managed bandwidth requirements
- High latency tolerance
Vivante GC Series GPU IP Cores
Vivante’s GC series offers a range of GPU cores with the smallest silicon footprint at each performance level. Solutions range from the entry-level GC400, which is the smallest OpenGL ES 2.0 compliant GPU core available today, to the high-performance GC1000, which supports up to 512 threads in dual unified shader units.
Vivante Joins the MIPS Alliance Program
Vivante recently announced that it has joined the MIPS®Alliance Program to bring its programmable GPU IP cores to designers using cores from MIPS Technologies. Vivante will optimize its HD Visual Reality and Mobile Visual Reality lines of IP solutions for integration in designs using the MIPS32® 24K®and MIPS32® 24KE™ cores. These cores are widely used in products including media servers, DVD players, set-top boxes and mobile solutions.
According to Jack Browne, vice president of marketing for MIPS Technologies, “In the digital living room, where MIPS Technologies holds a leading position, customers are increasingly looking to differentiate with high-end 3D graphics. Vivante’s groundbreaking graphical IP cores, together with MIPS’ processor cores, offer a range of scalable solutions for customers’ next-generation products, with the best possible combination of high performance, low power and compact area.”
Wei-Jin Dai, Chief Executive Officer of Vivante Corporation, added, “By joining the MIPS Alliance program and optimizing our GPU solutions with MIPS, we can offer mutual customers the best solution in terms of graphics quality, ease of integration and cost competitiveness.”
What’s Next?
Vivante has multiple licensees for its GPU IP cores, several of whom will be introducing products that incorporate the Vivante technology—including cell phone application processors, DVD, DTV/STB and automotive navigation applications—in 2009. As a GPU technology leader, Vivante is already looking further into the future. The company is developing an even higher-performance line of GPUs focused on dedicated game consoles and consumer SoCs in next-generation process technologies. For more information about Vivante,
click here.
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