SIG: Imagination says OpenGL ES-based GPUs to hit One Billion mark in 2014

Imagination Technologies, Inc., one of the worldwide leaders in graphics processing units for smaller devices like smartphones and tablets and a hardware supplier to Apple, has announced at SIGGRAPH (booth #522) that OpenGL ES enabled GPUs will hit the one billion mark by 2014.

By 2014 many of those 1 billion OpenGL ES conformant GPUs will be capable of delivering the latest capabilities of the Khronos Group’s OpenGL ES 3.0 APIs (application programming interface), thanks to Imagination Technologies’ industry-leading PowerVR Series6 GPU processors.

Research conducted by Imagination, whose PowerVR GPU technology is the technology of choice for mobile and embedded graphics, suggest that SoCs (system on chip) capable of supporting OpenGL ES 3.0, including products incorporating PowerVR Series6 GPUs, will begin to ship in products in mid-2013, and that tablets, smartphones and other products supporting OPenGL ES 3.0 will become a significant and growing part of a billion unit market by 2014.  Imagination is providing OpenGL ES 3.0 capable PowerVR Series6 GPUs to nine of the world’s leading semiconductor and electronics companies.

Tony King-Smith, VP marketing at Imagination states: “The future of graphics is mobile. With such advanced features as multiple rendering targets, instancing and more, Khronos’ OpenGL ES 3.0 is a significant step forward for mobile and embedded graphics, bringing mobile platforms another step closer to performance and feature parity with traditional desktops and laptops.”

Imagination’s Booth Showings

Imagination Technologies will be demoing new capabilities in OpenGL ES 3.0 API on upcoming PowerVR Series6 products, including:

• Leaves – featuring OpenGL ES 3.0 Transform Feedback, a storm of leaves swirls across the street as transform feedback is used for position and orientation of each leaf and then instancing, another key OpenGL ES 3.0 feature, is used to draw the high complexity leaves with close to 300 polygons each.
• Metropolis – featuring OpenGL ES 3.0 Instanced Geometry, this demo shows a high-rise futuristic urban scene that is rendered using hundreds of OpenGL ES 3.0 Instanced buildings and flying cars. Multiple Render Targets (MRT) are used to add atmospheric bloom effects adding to the cinematic feeling  of the scene. High quality anti-aliasing and anistropic filtering ensure top of the line image quality.
• Shrine – features an OpenGL ES 3.0 feature in Multiple Render Targets. An eerie night-time scene shows the benefits of Light Indexed Deferred Lighting using OpenGL ES 3.0 Multiple Render Targets. This advanced approach to rendering scenes enables up to 4 light sources per pixel selected from up to 1024 lights per scene.

Says Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, “With Imagination already delivering PowerVR GPU technology designed for OpenGL ES 3.0 to many leading chip makers, it seems reasonable to assume that the market for such devices will grow at an even faster pace than those for OpenGL ES 2.0.”

Imagination will be at booth #522 for those who are at SIGGRAPH and want to check out these demos.

For more visit Imagination Technologies online.