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St-Ericsson U8500 Smarphone platform make unreleased phone look outdated!

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:05:34 +0000

St-Ericsson,new joint venture between ST-NXP Wireless and Ericsson Mobile Platform just announced the availability of their smartphone platform U8500.
This platform is currently the most powerful available in the market now and surpass by a lot its competitor like Texas Instruments OMAP3(unless OMAP4 is ready,but there hasn't been any demo yet).
U8500 embed the ARM mobile GPU MALI 400,which can compute 15 Milions of polygons per second.For some demo of the Mali GPU family(55,200 and 400) see our previous news.

Just like OMAP4 it sports a Cortex A9 multi core processor at unknown speed and St-Ericsson team claim that they already added support for the platform to Android. The U8500 integrate almost all the components required for the smartphone design:

Features

Full HD 1080p camcorder, multiple codecs supported (H264 HP, VC-1, MPEG-4)
High-resolution, touchscreen display support up to XGA
Simultaneous dual display support
High performance 3D graphics, support for OpenVG 1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0
Dual camera support with Integrated ISP 18 Mpixel and 5 Mpixel
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS enabled platform
Built-in USB 2.0, HDMI out
Support for multiple operating systems, Symbian, Android and Linux-based platforms
Optional support for mobile TV standards

Technology

Highly efficient, low-power ARM dual Cortex™- A9 processor
Dual multimedia DSP for low-power, flexible media processing
High-bandwidth LP-DDR2 interface
ARM Mali™ 400 GPU and NEON®CPU extensions
State-of-the-art HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) Release 7 modem
Unique audio architecture with a wide range of audio codecs supported
Advanced power saving architecture enabling class-leading audio and video playback times

What does await us in the pmp market?Let's have a look

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:31:28 +0000

After Nvida Tegra,a new contender is entering the pmp market at full force,and couldn't be a bigger one.

I'm talking of ARM,which is licensing one after another its Mali GPU capable of Full HD video Decoding and Encoding,3D up to 15M polygons,everything at extremely low power.

Since it is being licensed to almost every chipmaker(22 licenses counting now),the next generation of pmp coming this year is sure to be a big jump ahead in technology.

Among the many chip maker 2 big players are currently working with ARM MALI:Telechips with TCC89xx(7M polygons,ARM11 500mhz +Mali 200) ,TCC92xx,and next year with TCC88xx(15M polygons,Cortex A8 800Mhz + Mali 400) and the biggest chinese chip maker,Rockchips with an unreleased chip using Mali 55(yeah kinda old).Read our previous news about it.

Following I made a collection of demos of the MALI GPU.

If you are looking for a technical blog updated on the last tech for mobile and pmp keep following us!

PROJECT GOTHAM RACING MOBILE

MALI CANVAS DEMO

3D STOREFRONT UI by IdeaWorks

PHONE UI with STEREOSCOPIC EFFECT by Digital Aria

Powerboat Challenge by Fishlabs Entertainment

3D ROBOT UI by ARM

CAR DASHBOARD by Mentor Graphics

Arm Mali on its way to chinese players

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:41:00 +0000

CAMBRIDGE, UK – July 29, 2009 – ARM [(LSE: ARM); (Nasdaq: ARMH)] announces today that it is seeing demand for mobile devices offering a high-definition (HD) entertainment and browsing experience rapidly increasing in Asia, as two more licensing agreements for its ARM® Mali™ graphics processing units (GPUs) are made with mobile technology providers in the region, Rockchip and Telechips.

Leading mobile analyst house, Screen Digest, has highlighted the importance of a quality of end-user experience in mobile entertainment provision. The analyst house estimates that as high-end mobile devices become more mainstream, the mobile gaming, video and TV market will grow 300 percent to €8.5 billion (approximately U.S. $12 billion) by 2013 in Asia Pacific, North America and Europe.

Rockchip has licensed three ARM technologies to enable OEMs to enhance the quality of graphics and to allow complex applications to be run on portable devices without jeopardizing battery life. The China-based semiconductor developer has licensed the ARM Mali-55 GPU, the ARM926EJ-S™ processor and the ARM Cortex™-M3 microcontroller for use in next-generation mobile phones and portable media players, offering consumers cutting-edge media experiences while on the move.

Korea-based Telechips has extended its license of the ARM Mali-200 GPU for its multimedia applications processor, now in silicon and set to deliver stunning interfaces and user-friendly navigation on a range of mobile and consumer electronics devices.

“Today's high-end mobile devices with large screens and computer-like capabilities are big drivers for mobile content consumption and especially for mobile games and mobile video,” said Ronan de Renesse, senior analyst at Screen Digest. “Highly demanding applications and services such as TV, video and games on mobile devices are set to generate in excess of €8.5 billion by the end of 2013 in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific; three times more than it did in 2008. Quality of experience is key for the market to reach its full potential.”

Consumers today want to be able to enjoy next-generation entertainment on a range of mobile devices. By incorporating ARM graphics technologies into their solutions, ARM Partners are enabling OEMs to meet the demands of today’s discerning consumers by delivering spectacular, high-definition video, user-friendly browsing and console-quality gaming experiences on mobile devices.

"The combination of the ARM Mali-55 GPU and ARM processor IP enables us to meet OEM requirements for the right balance of low power, performance and area, bringing advanced end user experiences to consumers on a wide range of mobile phones and portable media devices," said Mr. Feng Chen, CMO, Rockchip. "The range of market-proven IP, supporting system elements and extensive ecosystem that ARM provides helps us to continue bringing end-to-end SoC solutions to market".

"Extending our relationship with ARM enables us to take further advantage of Mali graphics IP, delivering high performance OpenVG, OpenGL ES 1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 compliant mobile and consumer electronics solutions to our customers," said Jang-Kyu Lee, COO and VP, Telechips. "The Mali-200 GPU brings cutting-edge user interfaces and navigation experiences to devices, fulfilling the increasing demands of consumers".

“These two new licensing agreements demonstrate the growing demand for next-generation graphics expertise amongst semiconductor companies and OEMs in Asia. ARM’s collaborative approach to graphics acceleration solutions, combined with the strength of the Mali range and the reach of the ARM Partner ecosystem, has led to the adoption of Mali GPUs by 22 licensees to-date,” concluded Lance Howarth, general manager, ARM Media Processing Division.

About Mali Graphics Processing Units
The Mali GPU family scales from Mali-55, the world’s smallest OpenGL ES graphics processor to Mali-400 MP, the highest-performance embedded multicore GPU IP on the market which supports complex applications at up to 1080p high-definition resolution, thereby addressing the widest range of performance points for all embedded graphics needs. This diverse offering enables ARM to lead in conformance to numerous open standards and confirms the company’s unique position as a world-class supplier of the complete range of hardware and software graphics IP, enabling application developers and device manufacturers to create competitive and cutting-edge designs.

Mali graphics processors deliver stunning 2D and 3D graphics providing 4x and 16x full scene anti-aliasing (FSAA) without any noticeable drop in performance. In addition to providing content developers with the state-of-the-art programmable features in OpenGL ES 2.0, Mali products also support 2D scalable vector graphics through OpenVG for improved text, navigation, UI and web-browsing experiences. For more information, please visit http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/graphics.