Mali-400 MP

The world's first OpenGL ES 2.0 conformant multi-core GPU provides 2D and 3D acceleration with performance scalable up to 1080p resolutions, while maintaining ARM^® leadership on power and bandwidth efficiency.

Why Mali-400MP?

Performance

Specifications

Related Products

Resources

With support for 2D vector graphics through OpenVG 1.1 and 3D graphics through OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 the Mali-400 MP provides a complete graphics acceleration platform, based on open standards. Mali is still the only GPU architecture to achieve OpenGL ES 2.0 conformance at 1080p.

Scalable from 1 to 4 cores the Mali-400 MP enables a wide range of different use cases, from mobile user interfaces up to smartbooks, HDTV & mobile gaming, to be addressed with a single IP. One single driver stack for all multi-core configurations simplifies application porting, system integration and maintenance. Multi-core scheduling and performance scaling is fully handled within the graphics system, with no special considerations required from the application developer

The provision of an industry standard AMBA^® AXI interface makes integration of Mali-400 MP into system-on-chip designs straight-forward, and also provides a well-defined interface for connecting to other bus architectures.

Mali-400 MP has a fully programmable architecture providing high-performance support for both shader-based and fixed-function graphics APIs. It provides class leading anti-aliasing capabilities ensuring optimal image quality, with virtually no performance overhead. There are a wide range of 3^rd party applications, middleware and tools support through the ARM Mali ecosystem program. These are pre-validated with other ARM hardware and software products, as well as a wide array of 3^rd party applications and content.

Features	Benefits
Advanced tile-based deferred rendering and local buffering of intermediate pixel states	Reduced memory bandwidth overhead and lower power consumption
Efficient alpha blending of multiple layers in hardware	Unlimited number of blended layers without additional bandwidth consumption or unexpected performance drops
Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) using rotated grid multi sampling	Significantly higher quality and performance than alternative oversampling methods
Integrated MMU based on standard ARM MMU	Allows virtualization of GPU memory resources and fine-grained memory protection
Fully autonomous GPU	Enables maximum parallelization of CPU and GPU tasks
Independent CPU and GPU power management	Maximize battery life, minimize heat dissipation
Fully optimized production quality software drivers	Maximum efficiency with low memory fragmentation, reduced integration time and cost, reduced support burden

Feature	Value	Description
Area	4.7mm²	Single core Mali-400 MP with 32kB L2 cache. Actual (post layout) silicon area, all memories included
Frequency	240MHz 395MHz	in 65nm LP in 65nm GP
Throughput	30M tri/s 275Mpix/s to 1.1Gpix/s @ 275MHz	Achievable performance in triangles and pixels per second

Feature

Value

Description

Area

4.7mm²

Single core Mali-400 MP with 32kB L2 cache. Actual (post layout) silicon area, all memories included

Frequency

240MHz

395MHz

in 65nm LP

in 65nm GP

Throughput

30M tri/s

275Mpix/s to
1.1Gpix/s @ 275MHz

Achievable performance in triangles and pixels per second

Feature	Value	Description
Anti-Aliasing	4xAA	4x Multi-Sampling with virtually no performance drop
Anti-Aliasing	16xAA	16xAA outperforming all implementations of comparable quality
API Support	OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 OpenVG 1.1	Full support for next-generation and legacy 2D/3D graphics applications
Bus Interface	AMBA AXI	Compatible with a wide range of bus interconnect and peripheral IP
L2 Cache	8KB - 256KB	Configurable L2 cache optimized for graphics data traffic
Memory System	MMU	Memory Management Unit
Multi-Core Scaling	1 to 4 cores	A single IP covering a wide range of markets and price/performance points

Mali Developer Center
Deploying graphics applications and content on Mali-400 MP based systems is greatly eased by the wide range of 3rd party development tools, middleware and existing demonstration applications along with the increasing availability of Mali-400 MP development boards.
Developer Tools	Shader development, shader compiler and shader library tools
Performance Analysis Tool	Performance data capture and analyzer for tuning the shader performance
Texture Compression Tool	Compressing textures to reduce system load
OpenGL ES 1.1 Emulator	Enabling developers to develop and test their OpenGL ES 1.1 applications ahead of hardware availability
OpenGL ES 2.0 Emulator	Enabling developers to develop and test their OpenGL ES 2.0 applications ahead of hardware availability

Processor IP
ARM1176JZF-S	The highest performance uni-processor in the Classic ARM processor family. Widely licensed for a vast array of applications it is used in today's leading-brand mobile handsets, set-top boxes, digital TVs, high-end photo frames and many other applications.
ARM11 MPCore	This processor was the first to introduce multi-core technology and continues to be licensed for a wide array of applications including mobile handset, navigation devices, and Smartbook applications.
Cortex-A5	The smallest, lowest power ARM multicore processor capable of delivering the Internet to the widest possible range of devices: from ultra low cost handsets, feature phones and smart mobile devices, to pervasive embedded, consumer and industrial devices.
Cortex-A8	The ARM Cortex-A8 processor has the ability to scale in speed from 600MHz to greater than 1GHz, meeting the requirements for power-optimized mobile devices needing operation in less than 300mW; and performance-optimized consumer applications requiring 2000 Dhrystone MIPS.
Cortex-A9	Available as either a single core or configurable multicore processor, the Cortex-A9 processor can scale across a wide variety of applications making it an ideal solution for designs requiring high performance in low power or thermally constrained cost-sensitive devices.

System IP
System IP provides the interconnect and peripheral components enable Mali-400 MP to deliver its full performance potential within energy efficient SoC designs
AMBA AXI Interconnect and Peripherals	System IP generators, level-2 cache control, memory controllers and peripherals compatible with the AMBA AXI standard.

Physical IP
Physical IP Platforms deliver process optimised IP, for best-in-class implementations of the Mali-400 graphics processor at 90 nm, 65 nm and below
Standard Cell Logic Libraries	Available in a variety of different architectures ARM Standard Cell Libraries support a wide performance range for all types of SoC designs. Designers can choose between different libraries and optimize their designs for speed, power and/or area
Memory Compilers and Registers	A broad array of silicon proven SRAM, Register File and ROM memory compilers for all types of SoC designs ranging from performance critical to cost sensitive and low power applications
Interface Libraries	A broad portfolio of silicon-proven Interface IP designed to meet varying system architectures and standards. General Purpose I/O, Specialty I/O, High Speed DDR and Serial Interfaces are optimized to deliver high data throughput performance with low pin counts