TI announces OMAP5

Mike11

Regular
TI announces OMAP5:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/07/ti-announces-omap-5-two-high-performance-and-two-low-power-core/
http://www.ti.com/ww/en/omap/omap5/omap5-platform.html

Not just a faster horse: TI's OMAP™ 5 platform transforms the concept of 'mobile'

- New OMAP 5 platform creates disruptive mobile experiences akin to Henry Ford's transformative automobile advancements

- Mobile computing, stereoscopic 3D, gesture recognition and computational photography intensified by TI's best-in-class applications platform

- Sophisticated multi-core processing, including ARM® Cortex™-A15 MPCore™ processors

DALLAS (Feb. 7, 2011) – Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) announced today the next generation of its popular OMAP™ family: the OMAP 5 mobile applications platform, which is positioned to transform how mobile devices, such as Smartphones, tablets and other mobile form factors are used, making them even more valuable in our daily lives. More information on the OMAP 5 platform can be found here: www.ti.com/wbu_omap5_pr_lp

Imagine carrying only one productivity tool while in the office, on the road or at home – a single mobile device which provides PC-like computing performance with mobile power levels. Imagine using the same device to conduct a stereoscopic 3D (S3D) video conference for work. Imagine being in a meeting and projecting a document from this device, which you can edit by simply touching the projected image on a surface. Imagine going home and switching the device to your personal operating system to drive a next-generation game on your HDTV using wireless display technology. These capabilities are only highlights of what the TI OMAP 5 platform uniquely delivers. To see more experiences enabled by the OMAP 5 platform, view a video here: www.ti.com/wbu_omap5_pr_v

Highest performance, lowest power...yet again
The 28 nanometer OMAP 5 applications processors carry on the OMAP family tradition of delivering significant increases in performance and functionality, while lowering power consumption compared to their predecessors. Specifically, they offer up to 3x processing performance and five-fold 3D graphics improvement, yet provide a nearly 60 percent average power reduction compared to a sample user experience on the OMAP 4 platform. Additionally, the OMAP 5 platform's software is designed for maximum reuse to ease migration from the OMAP 4 platform.

"The next decade will bring a revolution in mobile computing, as devices continue to converge, attempting to become one single device that meets all of our computing, entertainment, and complex day-to-day needs and interests. However, the bridge to true mobile computing enablement was missing until today. The OMAP 5 platform will be at the heart of driving the mobile computing revolution by delivering the highest computing, graphics and multimedia performance possible within the low power budget required by mobile form factors," said Remi El-Ouazzane, vice president, OMAP platform business unit, TI.

Sophisticated, multi-core processing: harmonized for the best possible user experience
The OMAP 5 processor leverages two ARM® Cortex™-A15 MPCores™ – the most advanced ARM architecture to date – capable of speeds of up to 2 GHz per core in the OMAP 5 implementation. With a 50 percent boost in performance over the Cortex-A9 core (at the same clock frequency), combined with up to 8GB of dynamic memory access and hardware virtualization support, the Cortex-A15 core can enable true mobile computing experiences, such as the ones referenced above.

The OMAP 5 architecture utilizes an intelligent combination of many different processing cores – each tailored and power-optimized for specific functions – and all harmonized to provide the best possible user experience. In addition to the two Cortex-A15 cores, the OMAP 5 processor includes individual, dedicated engines for: video, imaging and vision, DSP, 3D graphics, 2D graphics, display and security. The processor also includes two ARM Cortex-M4 processors for offloading real-time processing from the Cortex-A15 cores to improve low-level control and responsiveness of mobile devices.

"We continue to see high performance mobile devices, such as advanced Smartphones and tablets, requiring increased processor performance while remaining within the restricted mobile power consumption boundaries," said Mike Inglis, EVP and general manager of the ARM Processor Division. "The OMAP 5 processor highlights the advantage of the ARM business model. The relationship enables product differentiation through the integration of low power multi-core ARM processor cores with the partners' own system-on-chip technologies, including power management, audio and video processing. ARM is proud to have contributed to the OMAP 5 platform, which enables OEM customers to leverage the extensive ARM software ecosystem to quickly deliver innovative new mobile solutions."

Next-generation natural user interfaces
Natural user interfaces (NUI) – how we interact with the world around us in an intuitive, natural way – are taken to the next level with the OMAP 5 platform's advanced support for S3D, gesturing (including proximity sensing), and interactive projection.

The OMAP 5 processor can support up to four cameras in parallel, as well as record and play back S3D video in 1080p quality, and perform real-time conversion of 2D content to S3D at 1080p resolution. The new processor can also deliver advanced short- and long-range gesturing applications, as well as full-body and multi-body interactive gestures, utilizing either 2D or S3D cameras. The OMAP 5 processor, coupled with a TI DLP® Pico™ projector and a camera, can also enable interactive projection where the user can actually "touch and drag" projected images on both a table top or wall.

Additionally, the OMAP 5 processor can interface with and leverage a wide variety of sensor technologies to enable touchless sensing, such as proximity sensing, capacitive sensing and ultrasonic sensing.

Computational photography – the industry's next frontier
Today, most mobile devices are equipped with built-in cameras; however, due to the physical limitations of the device, picture and video quality is not on par with stand-alone consumer electronic products, such as digital SLR cameras. In order to close this quality gap, computational algorithms are used to compensate for these limitations. The OMAP 5 processor includes hardware and software resources that enable the development and deployment of such algorithms, such as camera stabilization, motion blur reduction, noise reduction, high dynamic range and face-based processing. The new processor also goes a step further by using the same OMAP 5 hardware resources with vision algorithms to extract features and data from the picture, in order to implement applications such as face recognition, object recognition and text recognition. These vision capabilities can also be used as the foundation for many different and exciting augmented reality applications.

Industry's best all-around applications processor platform
The OMAP 5 platform sports an impressive list of features and benefits supporting everything from open source platforms to complementary TI technologies, including:

Strengthening the OMAP 5 platform's value, TI leverages its open source community involvement to benefit customer product development. Early extensive work in community projects translates to a significant quality and schedule advantage for device manufacturers, including power, memory and performance optimization. Additionally, TI's pre-integrated software packages for popular Linux-based distributions help manufacturers achieve maximum system-level performance while driving a faster time-to-market.

Availability
TI's OMAP 5 platform is expected to sample in the second half of 2011, with devices on the market in the second half of 2012. The OMAP5430 processor is offered in a 14x14mm Package-on-Package (PoP) with LPDDR2 memory support. The OMAP5432 processor is offered in a 17x17mm BGA package with DDR3/DDR3L memory support.

These products are intended for high-volume mobile OEMs and ODMs and are not available through distributors. TI also plans to develop compatible ARM Cortex-A15 processor-based solutions for broader market applications across TI's product portfolio.

OMAP5430-SoC_large.gif


OMAP5430 Key Benefits
- Designed to drive Smartphones, Tablets and other multimedia-rich mobile devices
- Multi-core ARM® Cortex™ processors
-- Two ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processors capable of speeds up to 2 GHz each
-- Two ARM Cortex-M4 processors for low-power offload and real-time responsiveness
- Multi-core POWERVR™ SGX544-MPx graphics accelerators drive 3D gaming and 3D user interfaces
- Dedicated TI 2D BitBlt graphics accelerator
- IVA-HD hardware accelerators enable full HD 1080p60, multi-standard video encode/decode as well as 1080p30 stereoscopic 3D (S3D)
- Faster, higher-quality image and video capture with up to 24 megapixels (or 12 megapixels S3D) imaging and 1080p60 (or 1080p30S3D) video
- Supports four cameras and four displays simultaneously
- Packaging and memory: 14mm x 14mm, 0.4mm pitch PoP dual-channel LPDDR2 memory

Not bad. But devices on the market in H2/2012 sounds pretty optimistic to me.
 
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Not bad. But devices on the market in H2/2012 sounds pretty optimistic to me.

Why? TSMC has just re-re-reconfirmed 28nm production for Q4/2011.

Any assumptions on what is the "x" in SGX544MPx? :D

All of the sudden, the NGP doesn't seem like "state-of-the-art" anymore.
 
The time scale is interesting. nVidia is set to release the A15-based Tegra4 around mid-2012. With TI being one of the primary co-design partners for A15, one would've expected them to have a lead. Of course, IIRC, this is the first OMAP that will not be manufactured in TI's own fabs. So that could have something to do with the delay.
 
The time scale is interesting. nVidia is set to release the A15-based Tegra4 around mid-2012. With TI being one of the primary co-design partners for A15, one would've expected them to have a lead. Of course, IIRC, this is the first OMAP that will not be manufactured in TI's own fabs. So that could have something to do with the delay.

In terms of timescale, whate surprises me is that this is the first time that TI hasn't announced the "next-gen" Omap at MWC. Given that its next week, why wouldn't they hold off until then ?
 
Any assumptions on what is the "x" in SGX544MPx? :D
Multi-Imagination Technologies' POWERVR™ SGX544-MPx graphics core:
Greater than 5x performance increase versus previous generation

Depends on the clock speed, but "greater than 5x" SGX540 sounds like MP4 to me. Or at least that's what I wish for :)

In terms of timescale, whate surprises me is that this is the first time that TI hasn't announced the "next-gen" Omap at MWC. Given that its next week, why wouldn't they hold off until then ?
Afraid of getting buried by quad-core (e.g. Tegra3) announcements?
 
The time scale is interesting. nVidia is set to release the A15-based Tegra4 around mid-2012.

Do you have a source? With nVidia not being announced as an A15 partner and the reveal of Project Denver I wasn't even sure there'd be an A15 part at all from them..
 
Do you have a source? With nVidia not being announced as an A15 partner and the reveal of Project Denver I wasn't even sure there'd be an A15 part at all from them..

I believe they did license A15. I don't think Project Denver will be finished anywhere near the schedule release of Tegra 4.

http://pressroom.nvidia.com/easyir/...releasejsp=release_157&xhtml=true&prid=705184

As for the schedule of Tegra 4, I believe nVidia's claim was a new processor every year. I would've expected that means 2H 2012.
 
the "x" means that they are going to use more than 1 configuration.

Some chips will have MP2 others MP4, hence MPx.
 
As Periander mentioned, NV did license the A15 but they're not one of the lead partners (who are, in order of apparent 'leadness', TI/ST-E/Samsung). I've heard some contradictory info (e.g. still 4xA9) about Tegra4, but I think metafor is just repeating the latest info from the grapevine, which is also the most likely possibility (and presumably on a 28HPM process). Also NVIDIA hadn't mentioned even Tablets for Project Denver, and certainly not phones. They are aiming at significantly higher performance than the A15, and only on 20HP at first.

As for OMAP5, it looks very good. I think the MPx might also hint that they haven't even decided if it hasn't taped-out yet (see: Qualcomm's roadmap changes on 45nm). They might be hesitating between MP3 and MP4 for example. Or maybe it has and it's just different SKU as tangey said. Also, one reason why they didn't announce it at MWC might imply they've got something else to announce then (OMAP46xx? Not sure if that even exists)
 
are these M4's only good for baseband processing & av, or are they competent enough to serve like the third low power core in the Marvell Armada 628?

usb3.0 OTG, sata, dual channel ddr... nice check list. what other SoC vendors are going dual-channel?

since the omap5 is announced, is my order for a cheap omap4 dev kit allowed to be fulfilled now (pandaboard)? :devilish:
 
The M4s are presumably direct replacements for the two M3s on OMAP4 which handle things like system control and imaging. I'm slightly surprised by that change to be honest, but anyway it is not at all comparable to the third core on the Armada 628, and much more similar to the ARM7 on Tegra.
 
Why? TSMC has just re-re-reconfirmed 28nm production for Q4/2011.

Any assumptions on what is the "x" in SGX544MPx? :D

Sounds easy to me. Watch the highlights:

The OMAP5430 processor is offered in a 14x14mmPackage-on-Package (PoP) with LPDDR2 memory support. The OMAP5432 processor is offered in a 17x17mm BGA package with DDR3/DDR3L memory support.
I'd put an "x" in there two if the amount of GPU cores wouldn't be the same across the product family.

All of the sudden, the NGP doesn't seem like "state-of-the-art" anymore.
It'll live at least another year past that generation due to low level API advantages according to Carmack. It doesn't sound unreasonable either.

As for OMAP5, it looks very good. I think the MPx might also hint that they haven't even decided if it hasn't taped-out yet (see: Qualcomm's roadmap changes on 45nm). They might be hesitating between MP3 and MP4 for example. Or maybe it has and it's just different SKU as tangey said. Also, one reason why they didn't announce it at MWC might imply they've got something else to announce then (OMAP46xx? Not sure if that even exists)

You're either getting old or....wait I can't say that in public *snicker* see above. In any other case you would had snatched that piece of into instantly :p

Depends on the clock speed, but "greater than 5x" SGX540 sounds like MP4 to me. Or at least that's what I wish for :smile:

I have a hard time recalling any IHV lately pre-announcing future SoCs NOT claiming 5x times the performance of the previous generation. It's contagious watch out!
 
It'll live at least another year past that generation due to low level API advantages according to Carmack. It doesn't sound unreasonable either.

Some PS3 and Xbox360 games are showing that hardware is not the only thing that counts. Me thinks that NGP games from AAA developers will look much better than the "average phone game" even after few generations. :oops:
 
I'd put an "x" in there two if the amount of GPU cores wouldn't be the same across the product family.
I'm not sure I believe that. Different packages and memory support doesn't have toean different chips, far from it. And if they are just different SKUs (which I suspect) then I doubt they would disable any 3D cores on the phone SKU instead of just reducing the clock rate.

I have a hard time recalling any IHV lately pre-announcing future SoCs NOT claiming 5x times the performance of the previous generation. It's contagious watch out!
Agreed, which means it might really only be a MP2 if we're not lucky.
 
It'll live at least another year past that generation due to low level API advantages according to Carmack. It doesn't sound unreasonable either.
IMHO most high-end tablets will have more raw power than the NGP sometime in 2013 and smartphones in 2014. So that's pretty much right in the middle of the NGP's proposed 5 year lifecyle, so that's not so bad for Sony and they should be used to it from their home consoles (vs. PC).
 
are these M4's only good for baseband processing & av, or are they competent enough to serve like the third low power core in the Marvell Armada 628?

They won't be functionally interchangeable with the A15s because Cortex-M4 doesn't have an MMU. These may not even have a view of the main bus - I haven't often seen M3s with fat external memory interfaces, although things might be very different when we're talking about internal interconnects.

Arun said:
The M4s are presumably direct replacements for the two M3s on OMAP4 which handle things like system control and imaging. I'm slightly surprised by that change to be honest, but anyway it is not at all comparable to the third core on the Armada 628, and much more similar to the ARM7 on Tegra.

My guess is someone at TI decided that there's a good use for FIR filtering or some other DSP-like operation on those processors, which M4 is better suited for and presumably has better perf/W doing. I might push for an M4 over the M3's we've been using at work, myself (for the same reason)
 
I'm not sure I believe that. Different packages and memory support doesn't have toean different chips, far from it. And if they are just different SKUs (which I suspect) then I doubt they would disable any 3D cores on the phone SKU instead of just reducing the clock rate.

Agreed, which means it might really only be a MP2 if we're not lucky.


Well its all about marketing of course, but if we take things at face value...Omap4440 is suppose to run the SGX540 @ 380Mhz. to get "x5" that, I assume it might be an 544MP4@250Mhz.(doing a very approx 8/380*250). Its probably difficult to get a pure x5 graphics improvement using a 544MP2.

Is it not strange that TI are saying that they have included their own 2D BLT ?, you'd have thought that could be thrown in by IMG for nothing.
 
Well its all about marketing of course, but if we take things at face value...Omap4440 is suppose to run the SGX540 @ 380Mhz. to get "x5" that, I assume it might be an 544MP4@250Mhz.(doing a very approx 8/380*250). Its probably difficult to get a pure x5 graphics improvement using a 544MP2.

I think this is pretty reasonable. Then again, I'm not sure if 544MP2@ 400+MHz isn't possible at 28nm. I also imagine they're comparing against OMAP4430, not 4440, which would be fairly legitimate.

Compare with their claims that OMAP4 would be 4x OMAP3 - at least, for the original 65nm parts the SGX530 ran at only 110MHz, so I would say that ~300MHz SGX540 is well in excess of a 4x improvement.

Still taking with a grain of salt though :/
 
If it's anything like OMAP4, the 2D part isn't just a dumb blitter. It's a set of, really quite sophisticated IMHO, programmable overlay pipes.
 
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