Google's Android platform is gaining increasingly more momentum by the minute, seizing an important part of today's tech world. In a bid to further expand the market for low-cost Android tablets, ARM has come up with an exciting offering: a new, entry-level version of its Mali graphics processor unit (GPU).
With the ARM's new GPU, called Mali-450, manufacturers will be able to develop tablets that are more accessible than high-end products such as Apple's market-leading iPad, which starts at a $399 price tag, but also provide a reasonable graphics performance to satisfy most users.
The GPUs in tablets account for a big share of the device's price tag, as touchscreens and high-definition video have become quite mainstream nowadays. These GPUs also take up more space on the CPU - the central processing unit on which the GPU is integrated. While some manufacturers want cheaper parts, they also want those parts to take up less die space while also providing a good enough graphics performance. The Mali-450 aims to do just that, said Ian Smythe, ARM's director of marketing in the Media Processing Division.
According to Smythe, ARM's new GPU offering packs up to eight cores and offers double the performance of its Mali-400 predecessor, which offers up to four cores. The new Mali-450 GPU is expected to reach tablets in the first half of 2013.
Something for Everyone
As the current tablet market demands a wide range of performance characteristics and price options, ARM decided to split its offerings in two directions, based on consumer needs. Consequently, the company will offer the Mali-T600 line for higher-end devices, which automatically come with a higher price tag, and the Mali-400 family, including the new 450 GPU, for the more accessible low-end.
Both offerings can handle video playback and gaming, but only the higher-end ones can handle "computational graphics," explained Smythe. That includes gluing images together to create a panorama, or matching points on images for facial recognition.
While most of today's tablets and smartphones employ ARM CPU designs, the company is fairly new to graphics. ARM made its debut into the GPU market with the acquisition of Norwegian chip maker Falanx, back in 2006. Since then, Smythe noted, it has expanded the Norwegian team from 20 to roughly 80 people.
Slow, but Steady
Apple's high-end iOS devices feature GPUs based on UK Imagination Technologies. ARM, however, scores better in Android devices, supplying GPUs for more than half of Android tablets and roughly 20 percent of Android smartphones, added Smythe. Moreover, ARM expects its partners to sell roughly 100 million GPUs this year, a significant increase compared to last year's 48 million units. "We're not quite caught up to our GPU colleagues who are shipping several billion units per year, but we're making progress," said Smythe, according to IDG News.
Samsung's wildly-popular Galaxy S2, which employs the Mali-400, is the best-known smartphone packing an ARM GPU. Meanwhile, the higher-end Mali-T658 announced in November is expected to appear in smartphones and tablets in the first half of 2013. ARM is also working on a high-end part called Skrymir due in 2014.
