| | By John Daly in Germany @ Monday, March 23, 2009 2:33 PM
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| | Fabless chip designer ARM presented at the Games Developer Conference today, saying its Mali GPU (graphics processor unit) were set to dominate the mobile gaming marketplace. ARM's Mali GPU products have been around since 2006 and its top design, the multicore Mali-400 MP, can not only decode 1080p HD video thanks to Mali VE (video encode and decode), but also deliver nice looking games. The design house also harped on about how the Malis can be bundled together in system-on-chips alongside ARM processor core designs. So far, around 80 million handsets around the world employ a Mali GPU, such as the LG Electronics Renoir. Twenty-seven companies have licensed Mali for SOCs, including big names such as Samsung, LG, Motorola, Broadcom and STMicro.
Mali GPUs offer both 2D and 3D graphics and anti-aliasing without performance crunches. The GPUs support Flash and SVG, OpenGL and can easily be bunged together with other ARM IP, which makes them highly attractive to companies using ARM designs for mobile chipsets.
In other news, NXP Semiconductor announced it had rolled out the first working real-life Cortex-M0 silicon. ARM unveiled the low-end M0 end of last month. The 32-bit microcontroller is to be used in toys, gaming peripherals, electric motor controls and in other applications which can make do with limited processing power.
NXP will use the M0 for its LPC1100 series, which will hit he market early next year. The LPC1100s will be used for remote sensors, battery management and 16-bit applications in the embedded market. X
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