TexasInstruments OMAP4470 CGPU Information:
What is composition?
Composition is the eye candy a user sees onscreen. Whether itisfancy UIs, graphics accelerated web browsing, heart-pounding game play,multi-tasking while video chatting and looking through photos, or watching thelatest Hollywoodmovie streamed directly to you, all these use cases require composition.Fastcomposition processing leads to a more responsive device without lag, ¡°butter smooth¡±scrolling, and instantaneous content updates. The end result is an experienceto remember with a ¡°WOW¡± factor.
In a nutshell, composition takes all the visual pieces ofwhat the operating system and application requires to be shown on the display, processesthem, and merges them together to produce the final image.The intricate detailshidden from the user are performed millions of times per second using theOMAP4470 CGPU.
What is a CGPU?
CGPU stands for Composition Graphics Processing Unit and itis fast becoming astandard for composition processing. This technologicalinnovation has seen rapidindustry adoption in many of the leading mobile andconsumer devices, including smartphones, tablets, and 1080p/4K2K connectedHDTVs. The CGPU is ideal for any screen size and it automatically scales to differentresolutions, aspect ratios, multiple screens, and formats.
CGPU is a task specific, multi-faceted processing core thatnot only accelerates and benefits composition. It is used to lower power (up to10X), reduce bandwidth (over 50%), increase pixel processing performance (up to4X), filter, scale, rotate, and dynamically adjust screen content.
New advancements in composition built around Google Android(HWC), Microsoft Windows (DirectX 2D), and other operating systems havefeatures built into the OMAP4470 CGPU to accelerate the platform experience.
How is the CGPU used?
Inside a leading applications processor like the OMAP4470,there are many important functional blocks like the CPU, 3D GPU, IPU,network/connectivity, and others. The CGPU is the new addition to this group asit becomes afundamental building block in a SoC/ASIC. With this new paradigmshift to include a CGPU, Texas Instruments has become a pioneer as the nextwave of exciting and novel user interfaces are built around the OMAP4470.
New experiences built around composition can now be realizedwith: Lower Power, Higher Performance, and No Feature Compromise
CGPU inDetail:
In previous versions of products that supported composition,this function was under the umbrella of either a (custom) 2D graphics processororthe CPU. Those implementations used simple tasks like BitBLTs, line drawingsand ROP functions, but nothing beyond basic functions that were limited inscope. Custom cores also had many variations which were not easy to supportfrom an OS or platform point of view since they were not always matched to theOS release cadence or feature sets/API.The CPU method was not optimal in termsof performance, power, and capabilities since CPUs were not designed for thesetasks.
In other implementations, the (3D)GPU was used in place ofthe CGPU, but this proved too costly from a power (battery life), bandwidth,and performance perspective. Due to the large gate count and die areaof the GPU,this large block consumed more dynamic and leakage power. Startup time to setstates in the GPUalso takes more cycles to configure, which slows downperformance especially when composition is dynamic and always changing. Most ofthe time is spent rendering non-3D objects, like UIs, web browsers, or apps,sothe GPU is unnecessarily being powered up to perform non-3D tasks.
Enter the CGPU:Tiny, fast,low power, easy to integrate, unified HW/SW stack,upstreamable open sourceuser/kernel mode drivers, and most importantly, supports industry standardsfrom a feature and API standpoint. No more custom hardware, no more specialprogramming required, and no more special builds or patches required bydevelopers and ISVs.
The CGPU can offload processing from the CPU, which lowerspower and frees the CPU for other tasks. The GPU can either be completely shutoff to conserve battery life or be free to focus on creating the best jawdropping 3D content without having to worry about composition functions or nothaving enough processing power to simultaneously perform 3Dand composition.
Blockdiagram:
Key Advantagesand Innovations:
Note: This is a subset of features supported by the TIOMAP4470. Please contact your local TI representative or FAE for more details.
¡¤ 2D Functions:
o Bit BLT
o Stretch BLT
o Rectangle fill, clear, and clipping
o Line drawing
o Filter BLT
o Mono expansion for text rendering
o ROP2, ROP3, and ROP4
o Alpha blending, including Java 2 Porter-Duffcompositing blending rules
o 32K x 32K coordinate system
o 90/180/270/X0Flip/Y-Flip/MirrorRotation/SourceRotation, including filtering
o Transparency by monochrome mask, chroma key, orpattern mask
o UI effects including blurring, sharpening, animation,transitions, and more
¡¤ Programmable filtering:
o 9-Phase, 32-Tap
o 1x1up to 9x9 selectable kernels
o Usedfor image previews, PiP, zoom/re-sizing, scaling
o Convolutioneffects for image blurring, softening/sharpening, mood effects, and others
o Imageprocessing for special effects like mosaic, aging, silhouettes, and others
¡¤ HW accelerated multi-surface composition
¡¤ Multi-Format support: including RGB, YUV, HDR andswizzle formats
o RGB and swizzle formats, including ARGB formats
o YUV and swizzle formats (U/V swap)
o HDR and swizzle formats
o YUV-to-RGB color space conversion (BT.601/BT.709)
o Planar/Non-Planar YUV conversion
¡¤ Full support for Multi source blending:
o Single pass multi-source blending
o Variable block sizes
o Reduces bandwidth
o Reduces software overhead and management
¡¤ Stereoscopic 3D support:
o Fast,scalable pixel processing engine to support high bandwidth stereo 3D
o Pixelinterleaving on an pixel and sub-pixel level
o HelpsSoC/ASIC support various formats of 3D video, games, and 3D desktop/windowingcomposition
¡¤ Full Function MMU:
o Variable page size support
o Secure MMU and special features for security andvirtualization
¡¤ Bus Interface:
o AXI
o AHB
o Cache Coherency with ACE-Lite (Optional)
¡¤ Zero and Low CPU Overhead:
o MinimizeCPU wait states
o Asynchronousoperation through DMA command stream
o CPUdoes not need to wait for 2D engine to complete execution before changingstates or issuing new commands (CPU can work on other system tasks instead ofservicing GPU core)
o Commandbatching/grouping to minimize CPU utilization and increase throughput
o Improvessystem performance while running applications
o Improvessystem performance by increasing battery life
CGPUPerformance:
CGPUSoftware Support:
¡¤ BLTSVille: Open source kernel.org user and kernel modedrivers
¡¤ Android (¡°Butter Smooth¡± HWC, Regionizer)
¡¤ Microsoft Windows (DirectX 2D/GDI+)
¡¤ Linux (DirectFB, Wayland)
¡¤ QNX
¡¤ GreenHills
¡¤ Other RTOS/OS platforms
Putting thepieces together:
Please click on the links below to access the latest OMAP4470information:
OMAP 4 Platform: OMAP4470 (Main Page)
AddLink(TIComposition Whitepaper)
CGPU:
¡¤ Focus On Composition: Tiny, Low Power, Task-Specific Core
¡¤ Scales to High Resolution, Color Depth, and AspectRatio WithAlmost Zero Incremental Power
¡¤ Offload GPU and CPU
¡¤ Reduce Power / Conserve BatteryLife
¡¤ Reduce System Bandwidth (Improve System Performance)
¡¤ 4X Performance Boost (Pixel Processing, Responsiveness,Smooth, Instant Content Update)
¡¤ 50% - 90% Power Savings
3D GPU:
¡¤ FocusOnly On 3D Content Creation (Not Composition)
¡¤ Power off when not used (conserve battery life)
¡¤ GPU + CGPU = The Ideal Solution
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