Armed and dangerous
UK semiconductor designer ARM has featured frequently on HEXUS.channel of late, thanks mainly to its increasing competition with Intel to provide the CPU of choice for the booming PC/telco convergence market as manifested through netbooks, MIDs (mobile internet devices) and smartphones.
Today, on the eve of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, we got a reminder that ARM's ambitions aren't limited to CPUs.
Mali is the name of ARM's latest GPU family, which currently has 27 licensees. Just to remind you, ARM doesn't make products in the way Intel, AMD and NVIDIA do, it just designs semiconductor technology and then licenses it to other semiconductor companies for them to incorporate into their processor designs.
ARM reckons its developing a partner ecosystem around Mali that is going to bring console quality gaming and other graphics related enhancements to phone handsets, MIDs, etc.
"Today's consumer devices are based on yesterday's platforms, and there is a tremendous opportunity for a revolution in the gaming market that hinges on the collaborative efforts of IP providers, foundries and OEMs alike," said Borgar Ljosland, director of advanced product marketing for ARM's media processing division.
"Thanks to the strength of Mali in the GPU space, we are well poised to lead the charge to this next level and fully expect the vast majority of tomorrow's consumer devices will be based on Mali technology."
