Arm of Cambridge in the UK, has announced the Mali DP650 display processor which can support multiple composition layers for graphics and video at 1920 x 1080 resolution, while avoiding a big impact on battery life, according to Mark Dickinson, general manager, media processing group, ARM.
The device has been optimised for 2560 x 1440 and 2560 x 1600 resolution on a mobile device, but can support external streamed displays up to 3840 x 2160. Specific features include:
- Up to seven display layer composition, rotation, high-quality scaling and energy-sensitive technologies such as ARM Frame Buffer Compression (AFBC) within a very small silicon area
- By doubling the size of AXI bus to 128-bit and providing a MMU pre-fetcher solution, Mali-DP650 can support more 4K composition layers and offers higher memory system latency tolerance than the Mali-DP550 display processor
- Mali-DP650 is designed to efficiently connect to ARM’s System MMU (ARM CoreLink™ MMU-500) enabling systems to achieve up to 4K at 60fps display resolutions
- The split-display mode feature enables MIPI D-PHY solutions to deliver resolutions beyond 1080p to mobile panels and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support allows for panel power saving, further extending the battery life
- Mali-DP650 is delivered with software support for the latest version of Android optimized to work alongside the Mali-GPU and Mali-Video drivers.
“The mobile market is transitioning quickly toward high resolution products beyond Full HD, with 2.5K the most popular choice now and 4K a priority target,” said Lingyun Shi, director of research, BOE Technology Group Co Ltd. BOE and ARM have formed a valuable partnership to ensure each other’s complementing display products are future-proofed. The ARM Mali-DP650 display processor caters to this as it is optimized for 2.5K but is also 4K capable, and by using split display mode to double the available pixel data rate along with a variable refresh it enables higher resolutions in a highly energy-efficient way.”
