Imagination announces PowerVR 'Furian' mobile GPU architecture, could power Apple's iPhone...
Apple partner Imagination Technologies on Wednesday unveiled PowerVR Furian, its next-generation mobile graphics processing architecture likely to be a key part of future iPhones, and also the first new GPU architecture since 2010.
Utilizing sub-14-nanometer process technologies, Furian will be the successor to the current PowerVR Rogue architecture, most recently found in Apple's flagship iPhone 7 series.
Imagination says Furian will deliver more power than Rogue while being even more power efficient. Compared to the Series7XT Plus GPUs, Furian will boast 35 percent GFLOPS density improvement, 80 percent fillrate density improvement for user interface and casual gaming, and 70 to 90 percent gaming density improvement.
Though the first GPU core variants based on Furian will be announced in mid-2017, products featuring the next-generation GPU will take some time to build. Imagination says the first Furian GPUs could hit the market by the end of 2018 -- by which point Apple could build an "A12" processor for that year's iPhone.
Imagination says the Furian architecture will better serve applications such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and "convertible" style devices that can perform in multiple form factors.
Furian will feature a new 32-wide ALU cluster designed for increased performance and density efficiency. It will also boast a new instruction set architecture in the primary and secondary ALU pipelines to enable improved utilization of resources.
In a press release announcing Furian, Imagination said its next-generation architecture is designed for:
Currently, the iPhone 7 GPU is based on Imagination's PowerVR GT7600 Rogue architecture.
Apple has used Imagination's graphics in its custom A-series CPUs for years, and the iPhone maker even flirted with acquiring the company before ultimately declining. Apple still does, however, own a 10 percent stake in Imagination.
Rather than embracing Furian, it's also possible that Apple could ditch Imagination. At least 25 staffers and management personnel from Imagination have jumped ship to Apple, leading some to believe that Apple could be looking to build its own custom GPUs.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story said Apple hired 25 employees away from Imagination late last year. Imagination later clarified the personnel moves took place over a two-year period.
Utilizing sub-14-nanometer process technologies, Furian will be the successor to the current PowerVR Rogue architecture, most recently found in Apple's flagship iPhone 7 series.
Imagination says Furian will deliver more power than Rogue while being even more power efficient. Compared to the Series7XT Plus GPUs, Furian will boast 35 percent GFLOPS density improvement, 80 percent fillrate density improvement for user interface and casual gaming, and 70 to 90 percent gaming density improvement.
Though the first GPU core variants based on Furian will be announced in mid-2017, products featuring the next-generation GPU will take some time to build. Imagination says the first Furian GPUs could hit the market by the end of 2018 -- by which point Apple could build an "A12" processor for that year's iPhone.
Imagination says the Furian architecture will better serve applications such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and "convertible" style devices that can perform in multiple form factors.
Furian will feature a new 32-wide ALU cluster designed for increased performance and density efficiency. It will also boast a new instruction set architecture in the primary and secondary ALU pipelines to enable improved utilization of resources.
In a press release announcing Furian, Imagination said its next-generation architecture is designed for:
- Multi-dimensional performance scalability: Designed to achieve the most efficient core utilization and performance density via multiple approaches to scaling, Furian can address a wide range of markets and requirements. Different designs for low- and high-end IP cores prevent compromises in scalability.
- Ease of SoC and system level integration: Furian is optimized for ease of layout in new sub-14nm processes, leading to reduced layout times and resources and enabling easier scaling to higher performance points.
- Extensibility: Furian is designed to allow future function-specialized pipelines to be tightly integrated with the GPU to deliver functionality that may be too expensive or not feasible to implement on a CPU/GPU/DSP, such as ray tracing capability.
- GPU compute: Furian is designed to address the increasing compute requirements across multiple applications and market segments with efficient use of compute APIs including OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.0 and OpenVX 1.1. Furian adds a bi-directional GPU/CPU coherent interface for efficient sharing of data; and a transition to user mode queues from kernel mode queues which reduces latency and CPU utilization for compute operations.
Currently, the iPhone 7 GPU is based on Imagination's PowerVR GT7600 Rogue architecture.
Apple has used Imagination's graphics in its custom A-series CPUs for years, and the iPhone maker even flirted with acquiring the company before ultimately declining. Apple still does, however, own a 10 percent stake in Imagination.
Rather than embracing Furian, it's also possible that Apple could ditch Imagination. At least 25 staffers and management personnel from Imagination have jumped ship to Apple, leading some to believe that Apple could be looking to build its own custom GPUs.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story said Apple hired 25 employees away from Imagination late last year. Imagination later clarified the personnel moves took place over a two-year period.
Comments
i'd also like to make the point that in Anandtech, it was said that some manufacturers might rush out cores designed with the new architecture (which isn't entirely new) in late 2018, but that the majority won't have it until late 2019. We don't know where Apple stands on this. They may have one iteration left to the current architecture, which will continue for years after this release. It also needs to be pointed out that Imagination is giving a very long lead time here, as previously, they've had core designs out at the same time as the announcement, but that this time they won't have them until mid year.
Other customers help pay for Imagination's) GPU efforts, but don't have the resources to field superior implementations of the technology. Imagination also contains a lot of uninteresting (and seemingly unprofitable) baggage (IOT, MIPS, etc). Those are two reasons not to acquire the company. Imagination also has a patent portfolio that probably protects Apple. That's a reason to continue the relationship.
So long as Apple can field the best implementations of ARM and PowerVR, why not allow competitors to help support the development of the underlying architectures? This also allows Apple to pick and choose future employees who'll have experience with ARM and PowerVR. If they roll their own custom designs, there will be no external pool of talent to draw from, at least initially.
If you've been paying attention to the news, you would know that Apple and Imagination had negotiated this point recently. Apple does own 11% of the company, a stake they bought several years ago. Intel owns about 15%, a stake they bought shortly after Apple bought theirs. But those recent negotiations went nowhere, as Apple thought the price was too high.
but to reinforce a point I've been making about why Apple isn't interested in buying Toshiba's successful memory business for the $18 billion it's been offered for, it's pretty simple - it's too much money for Apple's timid merger and acquisitions plans. While Apple can afford to buy almost any company they want, they just won't spend a lot to do it. Everything to them must be a bargain. I believe it's foolish. Often, it's more important to keep tech away from rivals than to worry about the cost, particularly when there's so much long range planning at stake.
If Apple spent some of the money they waste by buying back shares, on buying companies like this, they would be better off, and by extension, so would those of us who are long term investors. But they've been influenced by outside investors such as Carl Icann, who said he had Apple shares long term, but then scooted as soon as Apple had short term problems. He was the one who convinced Apple to begin share buybacks on a massive scale - $100 billion so far. That's money down a black hole. What could Apple have done with that? And now they've got $100 billion in debt to show,for those buybacks.
Toshiba is a different kind of animal because in that case it's not just staff, it's also some fairly expensive manufacturing equipment. So luring staff away won't work.
I'm not sure that buying Toshiba outright is such a great idea for Apple, but maybe Apple could buy all of Toshiba's IP and physical capital, but not take the employees and management. That would leave Toshiba as a company with management and employees, but no IP or physical capital. Toshiba would be sort of like a consulting company that Apple could pay to run the factories for them.
According to this AppleInsider article, Intel has a 5% stake, Apple has an 8.5% stake in Imagination Technologies...
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/05/09/after-failed-takeover-talks-with-apple-imagination-technologies-sells-3-stake-to-state-owned-chinese-company
On the decision not to purchase the company, I do not think the price was the problem. I think the problem was breaking all of the licensing contracts Imagination Technologies has with companies around the world. Instead of dealing with that headache, Apple hired several Imagination employees. I see a similar situation with Toshiba.
As far as buying back shares instead of buying a large company, can you honestly admit Apple would be doing much better today if it had spent $100B buying a company? A Netflix or Time Warner purchase would require Apple to renegotiate contracts. Buying Tesla would mean returning government subsidies, taking on Tesla's debt, trying to figure out exactly what Elon Musk has not admitted about how well or poorly Tesla is financially. GoPro, Twitter, etc. really? A financial company? An airline? A shipping company? A satellite company? The list goes on and on and on.
I'd rather see Apple continue to purchase small technology companies that fit with Apple's internal roadmap. It's worked well so far.
another reason is because Apple can shop around for the best deals, and the newest technology. Otherwise they're stuck with whatever they got.
im not talking about Apple buying A company for $100 billion. I'm talking about Apple buying a number of companies that are bigger than the usual tens of millions to low 100 million they usually do.
your'e talking about companies I'm not interested in. But if they really did (do?) want to make a car, they could buy Magna, a company they've been working with, and from whom they hired a few employees. Magna has a lot of experience building cars for companies such as BMW, and others. They're well established, and are a smaller company that Apple could easily afford, though I'm not sure what the asking price would be, it would be a lot less than Tesla.
they could also have bought sompanies such as Synoptics. Apple used them for the wheel in the ipods. They're a leader in this area, and are used by most of Apple's competitors. Apple could take them out of the market for just a little bit. There are other companies just like that. Small companies that Apple buys from, and where they, Apple are the biggest customer. For a billion, or so, a lot of these companies would be amenable for purchase.
what you've got to understand is that often, keeping important IP out of competitors hands is just as important as the direct benefits of owning that IP. Other companies are less reluctant than Apple in doing this. So Apple bought one company making fingerprint sensors. It was the most advanced one at the time. But they passed on the other major manufacturer - the very one that most of Apple's competitors are now buying their sensors from. Apple could have bought that company for less than half a billion, going by the financial talk around then. That would have put Samsung, and others, back by a couple of years past where they were. Two years is a long time in this industry. Samsung would just now be getting a fingerprint sensor, as these two companies were the only ones advanced enough to have, or be close to having, real products.
these are the types of buys I think Apple should be looking at. And Apple has been pursuing other deals, but they always drop out because of price. They just dropped out of negotiations with Ron Howard's production company, a very successful company indeed. Apple shied off at the price. We're talking in the low billion's, not that much really.
and Apple's Tv strategy is in tatters because of refusal to pay market value for rights, prices that other companies, often much smaller than Apple, are paying. And so, Apple is falling further behind in the Tv/cable area. They're far outclassed everywhere they turn there right now. They need to open their pocketbook.
and in the end, yes, they would be doing better if they owned something for that $100 billion they threw away.
Have their own teams concentrate on extending function at the interfaces of this core with the rest of the SoC.
What would be interesting is if Apple incorporate the Imagination Wizard Raytracing functionality in a future SoC, as that would allow for a new level of graphical fidelity in games (in particular better shadows, and great reflections).
And it wasn't Apple thought the price were too high, Apple only wanted "specific" part of the IMG, namely the GPU. And not the MIPS etc.
I think IMG staying independent is much better then part of Apple. There is specific benefits of it under Apple, but IMG being part of the larger ecosystem does indirectly benefits Apple.
Finally, a lot of people thought ARM 64bit would take years before it will be in the SoC, Furian could be same, namely with Apple.