The ARM Ecosystem continues to drive diversity and opportunity across the entire industry, bringing the benefits of semiconductor technology to users across the world. The changes appearing in the cost-efficient segment are especially exciting and the place where ARM is seeing the most success in its ARM Mali GPU range.
There are a huge number of opportunities for silicon venders and OEMs to successfully differentiate ARM IP in this market, from the growing number of customers looking to upgrade from feature phone to smartphone technology as SoC prices drop to below $4 (the Allwinner A33 with ARM Mali-400 MP2 GPU) and smartphones appear on the market at $33; at the same time the highest performing technology that showcases fast frame rates, great displays and long-lasting batteries is starting to trickle down into the mid-range market advancing mid-range market far more quickly, providing this new market with a whole host of features which two years ago was only available in premium devices; new applications are emerging that offer desirable new functionality and capabilities; and new form factors are placing mobile silicon into a variety of exciting new markets. With all these changes, the industry has been seeing the market share of superphones waning, making way for the era of the mass market. The mass market (entry level and mid range) is predicted to total 80% of total smartphone shipments by 2017 (Source: Mixture of ARM & Gartner estimates).
But just how big is the global mass market opportunity? In ARM’s results statement, we predicted that the mobile app processor market would be worth $20bn in 2018 of which the total addressable market for the mass market would be $10bn. The main geographical areas driving this ongoing smartphone growth are emerging markets such as China, India, Russia, Brazil, as the graph from Credit Suisse shown below predicts. China and India alone are predicted to bring over 400 million new users to this market in 2014.
Emerging markets will be the long term driver for smartphone shipment volumes (Source: Credit Suisse, The Wireless View 2014)
ARM Mali GPUs have rapidly become the de facto GPU for the mass market and for Android devices as a whole. Thanks to the low energy, low silicon area yet feature rich elements of our cost-efficient roadmap, we are now the most commonly deployed GPU in all new smartphone models with the fastest growing market share across all GPU vendors – in 4Q13 73 new Mali-based smartphones were introduced into the market. In fact, over 75% of all application processors coming out of APAC now have an ARM Mali GPU inside.
ARM Mali GPUs took the #1 spot in 4Q13 among new models (Source: Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research estimates)
The Mali-400 GPU has driven success in this market for all its customers since its announcement in June 2008 and continues to be popular in emerging markets where price is the key selling point and high-end features (such as the very latest APIs) are less valued. It can be found in a range of popular devices ranging from smartphones to wearables:
· Oppo Joy (Mediatek MT6572)
· Huawei Honor 3C (Mediatek MT6582)
· Alcatel One Touch Idol X Plus (Mediatek MT6592)
· Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini (Samsung Exynos 3 Quad)
· Huawei Ascend P7 (Hisilicon Kirin 910
· Lenovo IdeaPad A10 (Rockchip RK3188)
· Omate TrueSmart Smartwatch (Mediatek MT6572)
However, as the technology behind these devices is evolving at such a fast pace, tomorrow’s mass market consumers will be demanding more from their devices than their current counterparts. For this reason ARM has developed a long-term GPU IP roadmap that specifically meets the needs of silicon partners addressing this market, ensuring that as consumer values evolve the ARM Ecosystem has everything it needs to continue its success.
For example, OpenGL ES 3.0 will soon be the universal standard for developing mobile games and applications. Already, over 20% of devices support this API, according to stats from Android . Mass market consumers expect to be able to enjoy new titles as soon as they come out and this will require a GPU which supports the most popular standards. As another example, the trend for higher resolutions continues and a mass market GPU will be required that has the computational power to deliver acceptable performance at higher pixel densities. The ARM Mali-T720 GPU has been developed to meet these needs of future generations of mass market consumers, offering both higher computation capacity and API support up to and including OpenGL ES 3.1.
The opportunities in the mass market are endless and ARM IP is historically proven to be the leader in this field, offering functional, energy-efficient graphics within the smallest possible silicon area. Our mid-range GPU roadmap is advancing in line with the market with new GPUs ready to become the Mali-400 of the future, combining the best of ARM’s traditional mass market offering with the new requirements of a future age.
