GPU

Apple renews contract with its mobile GPU provider, Imagination Technologies

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 28, 2016

The fabless semiconductor maker, Imagination Technologies, has been providing Apple's iPad and iPhone with its graphics and video hardware since 2007. On Thursday, the UK-based company announced extending its licensing agreement with Apple, giving the iPhone maker multi-year access to Imagination's current and future PowerVR-branded graphics and video GPU blueprints.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Both Apple and Intel are investors in Imagination, with the former holding a ten percent ownership stake in the company...

iPad Air graphics rated up to 70% faster than iPad 4

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 30, 2013

Apple claims the A7 chip inside the iPad Air provides two times faster performance over its predecessor, the fourth-generation iPad driven by the A6X chip, in both CPU and GPU department. The claim exasperated disbelief among some watchers who questioned and dismissed Apple's 'two times faster' mantra as pure marketing talk with strings attached.

Per early GeekBench scores, the iPad Air is over 80 percent faster than the iPad 4, close enough to Apple's advertised 2x CPU gain. But what about graphics?

Inside Apple’s A7: dual-core CPU, quad-core GPU, Secure Enclave has 3MB SRAM

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 26, 2016

Following their initial analysis of the iPhone 5s's innards, silicon experts at Chipworks have now taken a closer look at the handset's 64-bit A7 processor to reveal a number of interesting tidbits in their initial low-level chip analysis. Based on transistor-level images of the Apple-designed, Samsung-built package, Chipworks was able to determine that the A7 consists of a dual-core processing core and quad-core graphics, tentatively identified as the four cluster version of Imagination Technologies’s PowerVR Series 6, the G6430.

Apple, along with Intel, is of course an investor with a ten percent stake in Imagination Technologies, the UK-based fabless semiconductor maker. Chipworks also focused on a portion of the A7 chip called Secure Enclave where Apple says fingerprint profile is stored securely and walled off from the entire system, except the Touch ID circuitry...

iPhone 5s iMovie 1080p rendering twice as fast

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 18, 2016

Early Geekbench benchmarks of the iPhone 5s seemingly prove Apple's claim that the new 64-bit A7 chip provides two times greater CPU and GPU performance over its predecessor, the A6 package inside the iPhone 5. Specifically, the iPhone 5s Geekbench score (the new version of the Geekbench app supports 64-bit chips) is close to the early-2010 Mac mini model.

But how do benchmark scores translate into real-world performance in your favorite apps? Blogger Lex McFarley did an interesting head to head test using the iMovie app running on both an iPhone 5s and a previous-generation iPhone 5. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the new phone rendered the video in half the time as the iPhone 5...

Apple accelerating custom chip development

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Apple has seen a few high-profile departures of its silicon experts for graphics giant AMD. For example, Apple’s lead chip designer Jim Keller left the company last August to join AMD's Mark Papermaster, who was briefly Apple's VP of iPhone engineering.

Another example: Wayne Meretsky, who is known for his work on Macs and other Apple products, in January became AMD's VP of Software Development. And perhaps most importantly, director of graphics architecture Raja Koduri in April left for AMD, where he had previously worked before Apple poached him in April 2009.

Now, Apple is striking back. According to a number of job listings and LinkedIn profiles, Apple this year picked up at least a dozen former AMD graphics engineers for Orlando Design Center, its rumored brand new shop for custom chip development. These hires indicate Apple's accelerated custom chip development as the firm seeks to further distance itself from rivals, whose products mostly incorporate off-the-shelf chips...

Apple’s mobile graphics provider Imagination is buying MIPS

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 6, 2012

Imagination Technologies, a British-based mobile graphics provider, will buy MIPS, a Sunnyvale, California-headquartered semiconductor design company. The transaction, apparently worth a cool $60 million in cash, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013. It reportedly includes 82 patents related to the MIPS processor architecture.

This development is interesting knowing that both Apple and Intel have ownership stakes in Imagination, whose PowerVR graphics technology powers Apple's mobile chips used inside iPhones, iPads and iPods...