ARM launches 2nd gen MALI-T600 GPUs for phones, tablets and smart TVs

Today, ARM announced the second generation of the ARM Mali-T600 Series graphics processing units (GPUs) that provide a dramatically improved user experience for tablets, smartphones and smart TVs. Each of the products features a fifty percent performance increase and are the first to include Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC), a texture compression technique that originated from ARM. ASTC significantly optimizes GPU performance and increases battery life in devices, enabling an always-on, always-connected experience, and has now been adopted by the Khronos Group, an important industry consortium that focuses on open standards.

New ARM Mali chips on the horizon

Based on the Mali Midgard architecture, the second generation of the Mali-T600 Series comprises three GPUs - the Mali-T624, Mali-T628 and Mali-T678. Each product has been tuned to provide optimal performance and energy-efficiency for different end devices. The Mali-T624 and Mali-T628 products provide strong graphics and GPU compute to smartphones and smart TVs, while the Mali-T678 has been optimized to address the demands of the rapidly growing tablet market.

ARM continues to invest in GPU compute capabilities by integrating the leadership that ARM has in the CPU space with ARM Cortex processors and applying it to the Mali GPU architecture. GPU compute enables greater control when balancing tasks between the CPU and GPU, allowing performance of the right task by the most efficient architecture. This enables improved energy-efficiency for current and new math intensive activities such as:

• Computational photography: computational methods of enhancing or extending digital photography
• Multi perspective views: the ability to have multiple views from different positions
• Real-time photo editing on mobile devices: photo editing at your fingertips on your smartphone, tablet etc
• GPU compute also extends the range of use cases possible on mass-market mobile devices, allowing features such as photo editing and video stabilization to be available in a wider range of consumer products.

 
“People expect higher standards of visual computing on their smartphones, tablets and smart-TVs with seamless access to their digital world and personal content,” said Pete Hutton, General Manager, Media Processing Division, ARM. “GPU compute enables this as it increases the range of functions mobile devices can perform within the available battery life. ARM continues to focus on system-wide optimization by integrating market leading CPU and GPU technologies to drive both high performance and energy-efficiency”.
 
The design of each new product addresses different performance points:

ARM Mali-T624/Mali-T628
The Mali-T624 GPU offers scalability from one to four cores, whilst the Mali-T628 from one to eight cores provides up to twice the graphics and GPU compute performance of the former, extending the graphics potential for smartphones and smart TVs. These products provide breathtaking graphical displays for advanced consumer applications, such as 3D graphics, visual computing and real time photo editing for smartphones and smart TVs.

ARM Mali-T678
The ARM Mali-T678 GPU offers the highest GPU compute performance available in the Mali-T600 series of products, delivering a four-fold increase when compared with the Mali-T624 GPU through features such as increased ALU support. This brings a wide range of performance points to address the vibrant tablet market. The Mali-T678 offers energy-efficient high-end visual computing applications, such as computational photography, multi perspective views and augmented reality.