ARM Midgard Architecture
- Thread starter arjan de lumens
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The quad-core Mali-T760 inside Rockchip's quick-to-market Cortex-A12 SoC hits the benchmarks:
http://gfxbench.com/result.jsp?benchmark=gfx30&test=545&order=score&base=gpu
http://gfxbench.com/result.jsp?benchmark=gfx30&test=545&order=score&base=gpu
Assuming that 760 has a comparable frequency to the T628MP6, the first should perform with 4 clusters roughly as much as with 6 clusters for the latter but also with the cost of significantly higher die area.
ARM's GPU compiler team were clearly never consulted before the Midgard ALU was designed, because not only is that arrangement really hard to do efficient codegen for in general, but it's also a chained arrangement with bypass paths, which I think is also encoded in the ISA.
Nebuchadnezzar
Legend
This might be the most ghetto chip breakdown ever, but also the first time ever I see a die shot of a new Mali GPU: http://www.antutu.com/view.shtml?id=7879
Includes IP block size breakdowns: http://news.mydrivers.com/picture/309044/309044_36.html
Qualcomm is killing it if the 330 is really just 16mm².
Includes IP block size breakdowns: http://news.mydrivers.com/picture/309044/309044_36.html
Qualcomm is killing it if the 330 is really just 16mm².
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Excellent find Nebu.
When scaling up the various cost metrics of a mobile GPU design like die area, heat dissipation, and power consumption, the resulting mobile SoC will start to run too hot to be practical for a range of end products before it ever prices itself out of competing for those design wins from the sub-dollar cost increase of several extra square millimeters of GPU silicon.
I think prioritizing performance per square millimeter over performance per milliwatt for mobile (whether by intention or by simply not having the architectural efficiencies to do otherwise) can result in a product along the lines of a K1 where the primary target market becomes a niche like tablets versus mainstream or high-end smartphones.
You know that would actually also encount Apple's SoCs since they've been since their A4 (I think) in a relative sense sacrificing die area in order to save more performance. The formula for the ULP SoC world is rather simple and it's called PPA and in that exact order:
Power
Performance
Area
?
I know Apple has designed for lower thermals/power by using more die area, which I'm saying is the correct priority for a mobile design. That's what I mean by prioritizing higher performance per milliwatt ahead of even performance per square millimeter.
I wonder if the start of that focus on larger silicon layouts was that Fast14 type technology they got from Intrinsity on, like mentioned, the Apple A4. Apple has managed to surprisingly shrink silicon usage with the A7, though, yet their priorities still seem to be in the right place.
I know Apple has designed for lower thermals/power by using more die area, which I'm saying is the correct priority for a mobile design. That's what I mean by prioritizing higher performance per milliwatt ahead of even performance per square millimeter.
I wonder if the start of that focus on larger silicon layouts was that Fast14 type technology they got from Intrinsity on, like mentioned, the Apple A4. Apple has managed to surprisingly shrink silicon usage with the A7, though, yet their priorities still seem to be in the right place.
I apologize; now that I'm re-reading it, I can see my blond moment.
Hard to tell without knowing transistor counts of former Apple SoCs and or competing SoCs to the A7. We know that the A7 has roughly 1b transistors spread over 101mm2, meaning roughly 9.9Mio transistors per sqmm for Samsung's 28nm but that's all we know.
You aren't making any sense here. The Tegra K1 GPU does not prioritize perf. per mm^2 over perf. per watt (in fact, it is ~ 1.5 more power efficient compared to the best ultra mobile GPU's available today). The SoC die size of TK1 is ~ 50% larger than Tegra 4, with most of the increase likely going to the GPU. TK1 is also not confined to tablets (which is not a niche market to begin with), as it will make it's way into portable gaming devices, high res. 4K TV's and monitors, high end smartphones, automotive infotainment/navigation/advanced driver assistance systems, and embedded devices for robotics, medical, and military applications.
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Yes, I too have read up on how nVidia's latest development hardware compares to the actual end products from last year's competition, and I also observe that the OEMs who build the smartphones at the highest performance end, where selecting an app processor without an integrated modem/baseband is a completely acceptable design decision and who've used nVidia in this space before, are not selecting Tegra K1 nor are the MediaTeks, Rockchips, Broadcomms, Samsungs, TIs, etc of the world licensing K1's GPU IP for their SoCs.
LOL. TK1 GPU perf. and perf. per watt is far superior to [end of last year's] highest end ultra mobile SoC's, and should be very competitive with any ultra mobile SoC for the duration of this year. You still aren't making any sense here. FYI, numerous high end phone SoC's do not have a baseband modem integrated on die (including S600, S805, etc). As for the licensing bit, that is aimed at a very select group of vertically integrated companies, and probably will not yield fruit until the Maxwell generation at the earliest due to the timeframes involved with IP development.
Anyway, your previous statement about prioritizing perf. per mm^2 rather than perf. per watt is nonsensical given the data we have at this time.
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