Posted on Saturday, January 09 2010 @ 16:37 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Imagination Technologies introduced the PowerVR SGX545 graphics IP core at CES 2010, this chip delivers full DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 3.2 and OpenCL 1.0 capabilities. Slashgear
speculates Apple may use this chip to power the upcoming iSlate tablet.
Thanks to that – and because Apple have invested twice in Imagination Technologies – people are now speculating that the SGX545, not the new NVIDIA Tegra 2, will be powering the Apple iSlate tablet. It would require a companion processor – an ARM Cortex A9 is most likely, the same as found in the Tegra 2 – but offer a significant graphics boost over the current SGX535 in the iPhone 3GS: up from 28 million polygons per second to 40 million.
The real kicker? Imagination say “the IP is already proven in silicon in a test chip” as well as being “licensed by a lead partner”; no names mentioned, but you can imagine that’s got more than a few people pointing in the direction of Cupertino. We’ll have to wait until later in the month to find out – Apple are rumored to be announcing the iSlate on January 27th.
