4G iPhone’s GPU

At CES 2010 last week the chip manufacturer Imagination Technologies may have let the cat out of the bag regarding the GPU for the next iPhone.

The GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is what offloads 3D graphics rendering from the main processor.

Imagination Technologies unveiled a new GPU named PowerVR SGX545. Now that might not mean anything to you but the next part will. The PowerVR SGX545 is the only mobile GPU capable of OpenGL 3.2 and DirectX 10 Level effects. OpenGL 3.2 offers the following to app developers:

• Increased performance for vertex arrays and fence sync objects to avoid idling while waiting for resources shared between the CPU and GPU, or multiple CPU threads;
• Improved pipeline programmability, including geometry shaders in the OpenGL core;
• Boosted cube map visual quality and multisampling rendering flexibility by enabling shaders to directly process texture samples.

While DirectX 10 offers advanced 3-D graphics-rendering capabilities and helps improve your computer’s performance in games and high-end 3-D applications.

The PowerVR SGX545 also includes OpenCL support which means that used processing cycles on the chip can be used to offload work from the main CPU.

So why do we think that the PowerVR SGX545 may be in the next iPhone well here it is……..

Apple is an investor in Imagination Technologies, purchasing a 9.5% stack in the manufacturer in 2008 and 2009, and also Imagination Technologiess said that they have produced a test chip for an unnamed “lead Partner”.