Imagination Technologies announces that its IMG B-Series GPU and PowerVR Series3NX NNA cores have been licensed for the latest RISC-V-based SoCs of Alibaba Group’s T-Head Semiconductor for AIoT (Artificial Intelligence of Things) applications.
Imagination joined the Wujian SoC Platform Alliance created by Alibaba’s T-Head Semiconductor in 2019 to help enable ecosystem developing SoCs for advanced AI applications. Imagination has been collaborating with T-head to build a heterogeneous architecture (GPU/NPU) based on Xuantie C910. T-head’s processor is built for customised hardware IP and optimised software stacks. The collaboration aims to contribute to the RISC-V community and support the development of graphic acceleration.
Jianyi Meng, Vice President of Alibaba T-Head Semiconductor, says: “We’re delighted to collaborate with Imagination. The combination of its GPU and NNA IP provides an ideal solution for our low-power and cost-efficient AIoT products. Getting the right performance-power trade-off allows us to unlock more possibilities in applications, and Imagination is a strong partner in this aspect.”
James Liu, VP & China GM, Imagination Technologies, says; “This is a great opportunity for Imagination and T-Head to drive AIoT innovation. Our heterogeneous GPU and NNA computing platforms offer industry-leading power-performance-area (PPA) and flexibility to enable a variety of applications in this space. The scalability of our IP will make it possible for T-Head to broaden its AIoT solution in the future.”
T-head has unveiled its latest chip development platform, named Wujian 600, during the RISC-V China Summit on August 24. Also revealed was the TH1520, a high-performance RISC-V based SoC developed from the platform. The TH1520’s CPU can offer performances of up to 2.5GHz. With this SoC, developers can now run desktop-level applications, such as LibreOffice built on OpenAnolis, an open-source Linux-based operating system.
TH1520 uses Imagination’s BXM-4-64 GPU IP, a core from its high-efficiency performance GPU family. The BXM offers up to 25% lower area and up to 30% lower power than previous IMG designs and features Imagination’s IMGIC compression technology – making it ideal for complex UI solutions such as DTV, with twice the render resolution of competing designs.
Also included in the SOC is the PowerVR AX3386 AI accelerator, part of the award-winning Series3NX NNA cores. It offers up to 5 TOPS with leading TOPS per watt, is 70% more performant in the same area as the previous generation and is optimised for low-bandwidth and high-performance density.
