Flexible, Scalable, and 50% More Performance – Imagination’s GPUs

Imagination is a company that solves complex problems by creating innovative technologies that help its partners succeed. Whether it’s automotive, consumer devices, or data centers, Imagination is looking to provide the highest-quality solutions for its customers. Their GPUs, such as the Imagination DXS GPU, are built from scratch with Imagination’s PowerVR technology as their foundation.

The Imagination DXS is a flexible and scalable GPU that supports the graphics and compute requirements of an entire vehicle line-up with single-core configurations starting at 0.25 TFLOPS and scaling up to 1.5 TFLOPS—50% higher peak performance than Imagination’s previous automotive GPU IP. At the same time, the DXS is optimized for compute workloads needed by next-generation vehicle intelligence, such as computer vision and data processing.

Imagination is also the inventor of Tile-Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR), a GPU rendering technique that allows for more efficient memory usage. Imagination’s efficiency through TBDR ensures the lowest possible bandwidth usage and the lowest amount of processing cycles per frame, leading to high performance efficiency and the lowest power consumption per frame.

Register-transfer level (RTL) design typically focuses on validating the design intent. To do so, the Imagination team uses the Cadence Xcelium Logic Simulator’s verification tools extensively and at a large scale, running several thousand real-life seconds of simulation. They then use Cadence Verisium Manager to manage this data and the context to close and sign off their designs. In the future, they plan to use Verisium Manager to link different metrics, such as formal results, using the Cadence Jasper Formal Verification Platform.

Kush Raval, software engineer at Imagination, said, “I think just about everyone will tell you that Verisium Manager has made their life significantly simpler. For me, it was being able to see all of that data that was essentially thrown away before all of that streamed in one place in one database. And it allows me to build views on top of all of that data. And all of that is seamlessly integrated into Verisium Manager and mapped to the verification plan of the project.”

With Verisum Manager, Imagination has taken its verification flow to the next level. By focusing on the customer’s needs, they can break them down into features and use them as the driving aspect of their verification process, taking things to a higher level of abstraction and productivity. Learn more about how Imagination is making energy efficienct GPUs.

“Designed with Cadence” is a series of videos that showcases creative products and technologies that are accelerating industry innovation using Cadence tools and solutions. For more Designed with Cadence videos, check out the Cadence website and YouTube channel.