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Imagination Gives MIPS Warrior A Boost
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Imagination Technologies has introduced three new additions to the MIPS Warrior CPU family, updating its embedded 32-bit M-class CPUS with the new M6200 and M6250, as well as the higher performing P-class CPU with the 64-bit P6600.
The MIPS P6600 is touted as “the next evolution” of the P-class family and is intended to “pave the way” to future generations of higher performance 64-bit processors.
The MIPS P6600 builds on the 32-bit P5600 CPU, which was the company’s first CPU core based on the MIPS Series 5 architecture and announced about two years ago. The MIPS Series 5 was designed to accelerate compute-intensive applications and thereby appeal to the embedded and mobile markets.
The P6600 CPU boasts a higher performing 64-bit architecture while other improvements over its predecessor include a deep 16-stage pipeline with multi-issue and Out-of-Order execution to deliver better computational throughput for complex software workloads.
“The P6600 CPU is the most balanced mainstream high-performance CPU choice, enabling powerful multicore 64-bit system of chips with optimal area efficiency for applications in segments including mobile, home entertainment, networking, automotive, HPC or servers, and more,” said the chip firm, adding that customers have already licensed the P6600 for applications including high-performance computing and advanced image and vision systems.
Like the P5600, MIPS P6600 is an OmniShield-ready design that supports full hardware virtualisation and security features. It is said to be able to handle up to 15 guest operating systems running simultaneously in fully isolated and trusted environments, too.
“This unprecedented level of scalability for virtualisation and security gives the MIPS Warrior family another unique advantage in the battle for supremacy in the processor space,” added the firm.
The P6600 packs a faster SIMD engine for accelerating multimedia processing as well as branch prediction and a load/store instruction bonding mechanism: two technologies that Imagination said will provide a boost in real-world workloads while keeping silicon area and power consumption in check.
As for the MIPS M6200 and M6250 chips, these are the latest additions to Imagination’s less powerful M-class family processors for MCUs/MPUs, further broadening the M-class roadmap for high-performance deeply embedded designs in segments requiring higher performance and larger address space.
Imagination said this could include things like wired/wireless modems, GPU supervisor processors, flash and SSD controllers, industrial and motor control, and advanced audio voice processing.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/imagination-gives-mips-warrior-a-boost.html
Chipmakers Advocating MIPS Open Source Moves
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Qualcomm Atheros, Lantiq (part of Intel) and Broadcom have joined the Prpl Foundation.
For those who came in late Prple is the organisation set-up by Imagination Technologies to support open-source software on the MIPS architecture.
The big names follow CUPP Computing, Elliptic Technologies, Imperas Software, Kernkonzept and Seltech joined the foundation at lower levels.
In a statement the Foundation said that the newcomers to the prpl Foundation’s board of directors will participate at the executive level and appoint representatives to the technical steering committee and to engineering groups including the security.
So in other words the key players will be advocating an open source approach to MIPS.
Prpl, is open to other architectures, and focuses on “datacenter-to-device portable software and visualized architectures”, it said. Initial domains oem its hit list are: datacenter, networking, storage, connected consumer, embedded and IoT.
Do Chip Makers Have Cold Feet?
It is starting to look like chip makers are having cold feet about moving to the next technology for chipmaking. Fabricating chips on larger silicon wafers is the latest cycle in a transition, but according to the Wall Street Journal chipmakers are mothballing their plans.
Companies have to make massive upfront outlays for plants and equipment and they are refusing, because the latest change could boost the cost of a single high-volume factory to as much as $10 billion from around $4 billion. Some companies have been reining in their investments, raising fears the equipment needed to produce the new chips might be delayed for a year or more.
ASML, a maker of key machines used to define features on chips, recently said it had “paused” development of gear designed to work with the larger wafers. Intel said it has slowed some payments to the Netherlands-based company under a deal to help develop the technology.
Gary Dickerson, chief executive of Applied Materials said that the move to larger wafers “has definitely been pushed out from a timing standpoint”
Chip Makers Going After Cars
October 14, 2013 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Chip makers including Broadcom and Renesas Electronics are putting more focus on in-car entertainment with faster processors and networks for wireless HD movies and navigation, aiming to keep drivers informed and passengers entertained.
With PC sales slipping and the mobile device market proving highly competitive, chip makers are looking for greener pastures in other sectors like in-car entertainment and information.
From Renesas comes the R-Car M2 automotive SoC (System-on-a-Chip), which has enough power to handle simultaneous high-definition navigation, video and voice-controlled browsing.
The SoC is meant for use in mid-range systems. It features two ARM Cortex A-15 cores running at up to 1.5GHz and Renesas’ own SH-4A processor plus the PowerVR SGX544MP2 from Imagination Technologies for 3D graphics. This combination helps the M2 exceed the previous R-Car H1 with more than three times the CPU capacity and approximately six times better graphics performance.
Car makers that want to put a more advanced entertainment system in their upcoming models should go for the eight core R-Car H2 SoC, which was announced earlier this year. It is based on ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture, and uses four Cortex-A15 cores and another four Cortex-A7 cores.
The H2 will be able to handle four streams of 1080p video, including Blu-Ray at 60 frames per second, according to Renesas. Mass production is scheduled for the middle of next year, while the M2 won’t arrive in larger volumes until June 2015.
Broadcom on the other hand is seeking to drive better networking on the road. The company’s latest line of wireless chipsets for in-car connectivity uses the fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi wireless standard, which offers enough bandwidth for multiple displays and screen resolution of up to 1080p. Use of the 5GHz band for video allows it to coexist with Bluetooth hands-free calls on 2.4GHz, according Broadcom.
Broadcom has also implemented Wi-Fi Direct and Miracast. Wi-Fi Direct lets products such as smartphones, cameras and in this case in-car computers connect to one another without joining a traditional hotspot network, while Miracast lets users stream videos and share photos between smartphones, tablets and displays.
The BCM89335 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Smart Ready combo chip and the BCM89071 Bluetooth and Bluetooth Smart Ready chip are now shipping in small volumes.
Samsung’s Eight-core Chip Goes Hacking
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A Samsung eight-core chip used in some Galaxy S4 mobile devices is now available for hackers to play with on a developer board from South Korea-based Hardkernel.
Hardkernel’s Odroid XU board has incorporated Samsung’s eight-core Exynos 5 Octa 5410 chip, which is based on ARM’s latest processor designs. Samsung recently announced a new eight-core chip, the Exynos 5 Octa 5420, which packs faster graphics and application processing than the 5410. The 5420 has not yet been shipped yet, however.
The Odroid board is priced at $149 through Aug. 31, after which it will be offered for $169. Samsung for many months has said that a board with an eight-core chip would be released, and has shown prototype developer boards at conferences.
Odroid-XU will provide developers an opportunity to write programs tuned for Samsung’s octa-core chip, which has been a source of controversy. Analysts have said the eight-core design is overkill for small devices like smartphones and tablets, which need long battery life.
The eight-core chip design also takes up a lot of space, which prevented Samsung from putting LTE radios inside some Galaxy S4 models. Qualcomm, which hesitantly moved from the dual core to the quad-core design on its Snapdragon chips, on Friday criticized eight-core chips, calling the idea “dumb.”
Despite the criticism, the board will give developers a first true glimpse of, and an opportunity to write and test applications for, ARM’s Big.Little design. The design combines high-power cores for demanding applications with low-power cores for mundane tasks like texting and calling.
Samsung’s iteration of Big.Little in the Exynos 5 Octa 5410 chip combines four processors based on ARM’s latest Cortex-A15 processor design, which incorporates four low-power Cortex-A7 CPUs. The Cortex-A15 is ARM’s latest processor design and succeeds the previous Cortex-A9 core, which was used in popular smartphones like Apple’s iPhone and the Galaxy S3. Samsung said the eight-core chip provides a balance of power and performance, with the high-power cores kicking in only when necessary.
The board has an Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX544MP3 graphics processor, 2GB of low-power DDR3 DRAM, two USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports. Other features include Wi-Fi, Ethernet and optional Bluetooth. Google’s Android 4.2 operating system is preloaded, and support for other Linux distributions like Ubuntu is expected soon. The board has already been benchmarked on Ubuntu 13.04.