GizmoChina: AMD likely in Mediatek flagship SOC MT679X

[zornem7]

A few days back, we got a leaked product roadmap of the upcoming Mediatek processors. In the image, we saw that the MT679X, which will probably be the best SoC from the company this year. The processor is expected to hit the markets by Q4 2015.

In our previous article, we said that Mediatek is in talks with AMD for a new GPU. While both the companies have denied to comment on its plans, once again Taiwanese media reports that Mediatek will most likely use the AMD Radeon series mobile graphic GPUs in upcoming processors. So, the powerful MT679X should be one of the first SoCs to feature the new Radeon series GPUs later this year.

www.gizmochina.com/2015/03/22/mediatek-mt679x-will-most-likely-use-amd-radeon-gpu/

 

[Mondozei]

Margins in the SoC space are razor-thin these days, even for incumbents like Qualcomm. Mediatek, which has thrived in the low-margin, high-quantity environment, doesn't mind.

But for a company like AMD, it does matter.
Cars are going to be a much bigger issue and credit to where credit is due to Jen-Hsun for seeing the whole car thing way earlier than everyone else(partly because he is such a car enthusiast).

It would help if AMD and/or AMD with Mediatek goes in that direction, too. AMD's primacy is GPU performance and we've entered the "good enough" space in the mobile sector. Cars, on the other hand, will need GPUs for more than just displays, they will need it for AI calculations for self-driving performance and so on.

 

[monstercameron]

Margins in the SoC space are razor-thin these days, even for incumbents like Qualcomm. Mediatek, which has thrived in the low-margin, high-quantity environment, doesn't mind.

But for a company like AMD, it does matter.
Cars are going to be a much bigger issue and credit to where credit is due to Jen-Hsun for seeing the whole car thing way earlier than everyone else(partly because he is such a car enthusiast).

It would help if AMD and/or AMD with Mediatek goes in that direction, too. AMD's primacy is GPU performance and we've entered the "good enough" space in the mobile sector. Cars, on the other hand, will need GPUs for more than just displays, they will need it for AI calculations for self-driving performance and so on.

Lol cars? Ask renesas how the business was doing. Cars aren't much better than tablets or phones.

 

[R0H1T]

Margins in the SoC space are razor-thin these days, even for incumbents like Qualcomm. Mediatek, which has thrived in the low-margin, high-quantity environment, doesn't mind.

But for a company like AMD, it does matter.
Cars are going to be a much bigger issue and credit to where credit is due to Jen-Hsun for seeing the whole car thing way earlier than everyone else(partly because he is such a car enthusiast).

It would help if AMD and/or AMD with Mediatek goes in that direction, too. AMD's primacy is GPU performance and we've entered the "good enough" space in the mobile sector. Cars, on the other hand, will need GPUs for more than just displays, they will need it for AI calculations for self-driving performance and so on.

Except AMD is not making the SoC for Mediatek is it?

Licensing GPU tech is pretty big actually, think of'em as an alternative to PowerVR & you also have to remember that Mediatek now is probably the second most popular chipmaker after Qualcomm, certainly a world leader when talking about mid/low end phones. Also to feature in a flagship phone they need a class leading GPU & AMD may just have an ace up their sleeve, with this partnership they could increase the efficiency of their high end GPU's as well just like how Maxwell & future gen Nvidia GPU's are being designed primarily with low power draw in mind.

 

[monstercameron]

Would be funny if they licensed their vliw4 ip. When you think about it, vliw was more efficient and phones don't really need all that compute.

 

[kpkp]

There really isn't that much competition in that market, there are only 2 major players (ARM and Imagination Technologies), a 3th player would be more then welcome.

 

[monstercameron]

There really isn't that much competition in that market, there are only 2 major players (ARM and Imagination Technologies), a 3th player would be more then welcome.

Don't forget vivante and nvidia.

 

[kpkp]

Don't forget vivante and nvidia.

Nvidia doesn't licence their IP/design out. I will confess I forgot about vivante but does in fulfill my other criteria of being major?

 

[pepone1234]

Would be funny if they licensed their vliw4 ip. When you think about it, vliw was more efficient and phones don't really need all that compute.

Didn't qualcomm buy the vliw technology that AMD had to use it in their adreno GPU?

 

[caswow]

Nvidia doesn't licence their IP/design out. I will confess I forgot about vivante but does in fulfill my other criteria of being major?

nvidia does but no one wants them atm.

 

[Vesku]

nvidia does but no one wants them atm.

No one wants them under whatever licensing conditions and cost per unit Nvidia are currently offering.

 

[kpkp]

nvidia does but no one wants them atm.

Didn't know that. But one could argue that being in the market without a single costumer or not being in the market at all isn't a huge difference from this perspective.

 

[Exophase]

Would be funny if they licensed their vliw4 ip. When you think about it, vliw was more efficient and phones don't really need all that compute.

I don't think VLIW4 was more efficient for normal graphics tasks by the time they transitioned to GCN.

When the SIMD width is already as wide as it was you don't get that much more also throwing VLIW on top of it, and besides that the total effective width was the same AFAIK so that actually makes it less efficient when your code takes the same paths.

At the same time you also actively lose efficiency for each slot you can't schedule an instruction in, and even for typical shaders VLIW4 had worse utilization than GCN.

Then there's whatever efficiency improvements they've made since that would be impractical/undesirable to backport to an older uarch.

A high end ARM SoC would want integrated graphics at at least the level Beema/Mullins is giving, no reason AMD would have moved to GCN there and not here.