3/21/2012

Re-thinkable LG's L9 application processor for Smart TV

Apple's CPU is remarkable item to be focused whenever its brand new product launching and let geeks spill out their excitement. The most recent CPU in new iPad is named in A5X, which integrates dual ARM's cortex A9 processor and quad PowerVR's SGX543MP4 GPU processors. This quad  GPU processor structure, SGX543MP4, was known as used to be implemented in Sony Playstation Vita. Its quad GPU performance can be estimated like below;

1 core = 35M polygon / sec @200Mhz
4 cores = 133M polygon / sec @200Mhz

At this time, I reviewed LG's L9 AP's information again to compare with Apple's A5X. Surprisingly, L9 AP integrates dual ARM's cortex A9 and quad Mali 400MP GPU similarly to A5X. This performance of Mali 400MP in ARM's company site is shown as below.


1 core = 30M triangles / sec @275Mhz (in 65nm process)
[Source] http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/mali-graphics-hardware/mali-400-mp.php




To access LG's L9 chipset brochure
http://www.arm.com/files/pdf/LG_Smart_Tv_ARM_Offices_Poster.pdf



Approximately and considering process scale there looks no dramatic performance difference between two GPUs. Then, does that means LG is closing to hand-in its own AP for smartphone beyond stationary Smart TV like Apple and Samsung?