Rumor: Apple developing proprietary mobile GPU, could replace Imagination's PowerVR
Apple is allegedly at work on its own graphics processor technology, which -- if completed -- would bring almost all of its mobile processor design in-house.
The company has been developing a mobile GPU "under extreme secrecy for a few years," according to Fudzilla graphics industry sources. There doesn't appear to be a firm timeline for when the technology will reach shipping products, and indeed Fudzilla suggested that there's a chance it might not reach fruition.
While Apple relies on a custom ARM-based CPU design for the A-series chips in iOS devices and the Apple TV, the GPUs in those products are often slightly modified PowerVR units supplied by Imagination Technologies. The iPad Air 2, for example, uses a PowerVR GXA6850 octa-core processor.
The iPad Pro, though, appears to be using a special 12-core GPU design. That could back the notion that Apple is building towards its own graphics hardware.
Controlling every aspects of its processors could let Apple further optimize the efficiency and power consumption of its devices, a special concern as it forces designs thinner at all costs, and ventures into wearables. Many rival phone and tablet makers use third-party CPUs and GPUs from companies like Qualcomm and Nvidia, limiting how tuned they can be for a particular OS or set of demands.
Apple, however, has already made a significant investment in Imagination Technologies that makes rumors of such a shift suspect. Apple bought a 3.6 percent stake in Imagination in 2008, and has since increased that to almost 10 percent.
The two companies also have a far-reaching licensing agreement, though the exact terms remain unknown.
The company has been developing a mobile GPU "under extreme secrecy for a few years," according to Fudzilla graphics industry sources. There doesn't appear to be a firm timeline for when the technology will reach shipping products, and indeed Fudzilla suggested that there's a chance it might not reach fruition.
While Apple relies on a custom ARM-based CPU design for the A-series chips in iOS devices and the Apple TV, the GPUs in those products are often slightly modified PowerVR units supplied by Imagination Technologies. The iPad Air 2, for example, uses a PowerVR GXA6850 octa-core processor.
The iPad Pro, though, appears to be using a special 12-core GPU design. That could back the notion that Apple is building towards its own graphics hardware.
Controlling every aspects of its processors could let Apple further optimize the efficiency and power consumption of its devices, a special concern as it forces designs thinner at all costs, and ventures into wearables. Many rival phone and tablet makers use third-party CPUs and GPUs from companies like Qualcomm and Nvidia, limiting how tuned they can be for a particular OS or set of demands.
Apple, however, has already made a significant investment in Imagination Technologies that makes rumors of such a shift suspect. Apple bought a 3.6 percent stake in Imagination in 2008, and has since increased that to almost 10 percent.
The two companies also have a far-reaching licensing agreement, though the exact terms remain unknown.
Comments
Anyway. There is absolutely zero chance Apple make a GPU themselves. Why? there is no standard way for designing a GPU, even Intel had to pay patents licensing fees to AMD and Nvidia for their Iris Graphics.
So basically starting from scratch isn't an option. The Gfx engineers are there to optimise the GPU within SoC and further improve on it.
well, Fudzilla hasn't been around as long as the iPhone.
I will grant you that they are not a new entity, but 8 years is hardly a long time. Especially when you are looking at rumors stemming from the semiconductor industry & the 40 plus years of coverage from places like eetimes...
Apple already significantly customizes PowerVR GPU IP to develop proprietary versions of GPU cores that aren't available in similar, "off the shelf" versions for other vendors--much the same way it develops ARM CPU cores that are compatible with ARMv8-A, but yet are custom and proprietary.
So while Apple will continue to optimize ARM and PowerVR core IP, it currently has no need to run away from existing IP work to develop its own, in-house GPU from the ground up. Just as nobody else benefits from Apple's investment in the A7/A8/A9 CPU design, nobody else can take Apple's PowerVR work and just use it (already). In particular, anyone else who uses PowerVR lacks the benefit of Metal APIs to take full advantage of the architecture. With generic OpenGL ES, there's less of a difference between PowerVR and other GPUs, because the advantage is eaten up in overhead.
And on top of that, nobody is really trying to race Apple in SoC graphics power. Samsung is using mostly generic ARM and ARM Mali graphics IP, and showing little interest in building high end chips, because there's no market for expensive SoCs. Samsung only sells a shrinking number of high end Galaxy phones at very low profit margins, and everyone else is pushing the cost envelope downward, with Google focusing on Android One ~$50 handsets for India and the major volume makers all pursuing a very low-end market in China via the cheapest chips available. Ask Nvidia about the market for high end, mobile graphics chips. There isn't one apart from Apple, which serves itself.
The real custom work Apple might do in SoCs is develop its own mobile baseband, but with Intel/Infineon and Qualcomm desperate for Apple's business, it may be able to initially license their existing IP to create an integrated A10, if doing so made any sense, before doing all the work to duplicate their efforts (and expose itself to some even more desperate IP patent litigation/licensing).
As much as I'd love to see Apple buy some Intel stock to get IP (and foundries), I don't see that happening. Qualcomm is a possibility...
Daniel, Metal already runs on non-PowerVR hardware in El Capitan. So, it's not as architecture dependent as you claim.
I, on the other hand, shall continue to use an alias since I am not a well-known published author.
This doesn't give him more ( or less ) credibility, some times the rumors are just plain wrong. But that is just the nature of all rumors site. Exactly, and GPU are much more determined by two factors, drivers ( The whole point of Metal is to get rid of the Drivers Abstraction ) and transistors. You get a linear relationship performance increase with transistor count. ( Assuming Memory bandwidth can keep up ) PowerVR also have their Ray Tracing processor which allows 10x more efficient in Ray tracing. I guess Apple has been working on that as well.
Yup, he was writer for The Inquirer (and The Register) for a long time before that - he made a lot of industry contacts through that period. I think I met him at an industry event in either 2004 or 2005 when I was involved with hexus.net, I seem to remember that he knew a lot of people at both AMD (ATi back then), and nVidia.