Reports suggest a potential link between Google’s upcoming Tensor G5 chip and Imagination Technologies as a GPU vendor, supported by a recent post from postgraduate student Yang Yanling after the RISC-V Day Tokyo conference. This post, shared by Imagination Technologies, mentioned the Google Tensor G5, which is expected to feature the advanced DXT-48-1536 GPU capable of ray tracing. The Tensor G5 will be manufactured by TSMC on a 3nm-class node with Arm Cortex CPU cores and a new custom image signal processor. Additionally, the post referenced a custom Xiaomi chipset called XuanJie, also using an Imagination GPU.
The potential link between Google’s forthcoming Tensor G5 chip and Imagination Technologies as a GPU supplier isn’t entirely new. Numerous reports and speculations have pointed in that direction, but now we have another intriguing industry insight on the subject. Bear with us for a moment, as the details can get a bit involved.
Last month, the RISC-V Day Tokyo conference took place in Japan. Among the materials that emerged from the event was a blog post by postgraduate student Yang Yanling, which discussed RISC-V and the integration of Imagination GPUs. Imagination Technologies themselves shared this blog post on WeChat, lending it considerable credibility. The post also included a breakdown of various chips that utilize and will utilize Imagination GPUs. Notably, one of the previously available tables explicitly referenced the Google Tensor G5.
Imagination GPU integration table
According to earlier rumors, the Tensor G5, which is anticipated to power the Google Pixel 10, will be equipped with the DXT-48-1536 GPU. This modern GPU solution, unlike the Arm Mali-G715 housed in the Tensor G3 and G4, is capable of advanced features such as ray tracing.
It’s also confirmed that the Tensor G5 will be manufactured by TSMC rather than Samsung, utilizing a 3nm-class node. Google will implement Arm Cortex CPU cores along with a newly designed, fully custom image signal processor (ISP), which will take the place of the partially custom designs used in previous models that relied on modified Samsung ISPs integrated with Google-designed components. Furthermore, Google is expected to integrate a custom memory controller, system-level cache, and power management modules. For USB, PCIe, and I3C components, as well as third-party interfaces for DSI (display), DisplayPort, flash storage, and memory (LPDDR5x), third-party solutions will be utilized.
Interestingly, the same table that outlines the Tensor G5 chip also refers to an enigmatic custom chipset from Xiaomi, known as XuanJie, which is reported to feature an Imagination Technologies GPU.
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