Imagination Technologies, a leading designer of graphics and multimedia technologies for mobile devices, this week introduced PowerVR Series6 "Rogue" graphics tech that can be used for various mobile and embedded devices, including game consoles, smartphones, tablets, etc. The new GPU technology brings top-notch desktop capabilities, such as DirectX 11.1 application programming interface, to the portable world.

The PowerVR "Rogue" architecture, on which Power VR 6-series graphics technology is based, support all features of the latest graphics APIs including OpenGL ES ‘Halti’, OpenGL 3.x/4.x, OpenCL 1.x and DirectX 10 with certain family members extending their capabilities to full WHQL-compliant DirectX 11.1 functionality. Just like any other modern graphics processor, the PVR 6-series architecture is clusterized and allows to create graphics chips of various performance based on the same tech. The first PowerVR Series6 cores, the G6200 and G6400, have two and four compute clusters respectively. PowerVR 6-series GPU cores are designed to offer computing performance exceeding 100GFLOPS (gigaFLOPS) and reaching  the TFLOPS (teraFLOPS) range  enabling high-level graphics performance from mobile through to high-end compute and graphics solutions.

According to Imagination Technologies, PowerVR 6-series GPUs can deliver 20x or more of the performance of current generation GPU cores targeting comparable markets. This is enabled by an architecture that is around 5x more efficient than previous generations, the developer said. Five times higher performance at the same power consumption means that devices featuring PowerVR 6-series graphics will be able to support high-definition screens without degradation of performance or battery life.

"Based on our experience in shipping hundreds of millions of GPU cores, plus extensive market and customer feedback, we have been able to set a new standard in GPU architecture, particularly in the areas of power, bandwidth and efficiency – the key metrics by which GPUs are now judged. We are confident that with the Rogue architecture we have a very clear technology advantage and an exceptional roadmap for the PowerVR Series6 family which our partners can depend on," said Hossein Yassaie, chief executive officer of Imagination.

The PowerVR Series6 family will deliver a significant portfolio of new technologies and features, including: an advanced scalable compute cluster architecture; high efficiency compression technology including lossless image and parameter compression and the PVRTC texture compression; an enhanced scheduling architecture; dedicated housekeeping processors; and a next generation tile based deferred rendering architecture.

Imagination believes that next generation devices, utilizing the GPU performance that PowerVR Series6 delivers at optimal power levels, will change the landscape of software development as application developers start to realise the enormous parallel processing power available to them via Series6 GPU cores for both graphics and more generalised GPU Compute-based high performance computing tasks.

PowerVR 6-series has already secured eight licensees, and been delivered to multiple lead partners. Among the PowerVR "Rogue" partners announced so far are ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments, Renesas Electronics and MediaTek. Apple and Intel are usually among the first to utilize the latest technologies from Imagination.

Tags: ImgTech, Imagination, Imagination Technologies, PowerVR, Rogue