Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., has introduced support for the latest graphics and compute API from KhronosTM, Vulkan™, on its Qualcomm® Adreno™ 530 GPU, which is embedded in its Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 820 processor. Vulkan is the next-generation open-standard API for high-efficiency access to graphics and compute on modern GPUs. This ground-up design provides applications explicit control over GPU acceleration for improved performance and predictability. In addition to Snapdragon 820, Qualcomm Technologies is also planning Vulkan support for upcoming Adreno 5xx series GPUs as well as existing Adreno 4xx series GPUs. For next-generation graphics and compute applications, APIs like Vulkan enable more realistic 3-D graphic effects and more efficient GPU compute through optimal GPU hardware acceleration.
Vulkan supports multiple important features, such as:
- Explicit control over GPU operation, with minimized driver overhead for improved performance;
- Multi-threading-friendly architecture to increase overall system performance;
- Optimal API design that can be used in a wide variety of devices including mobile, desktop, consoles, and embedded platforms;
- Use of Khronos’ new SPIR-V™ intermediate representation for shading language flexibility and more predictable implementation behavior;
- Extensible layered architecture that enables innovative tools without impacting production performance while validating, debugging, and profiling;
- Simple drivers for low-overhead efficiency and cross vendor portability.
“We are pleased to have contributed to the definition of Khronos’ new Vulkan API. Qualcomm Technologies will be among the first to ship conformant Vulkan drivers, starting with Snapdragon 820’s embedded Adreno 530 GPU, and subsequently with our Adreno 4xx series GPUs. Vulkan enables the next generation of graphics performance by adding multi-threaded command buffer generation and explicit control of advanced graphics capabilities within Adreno GPUs,” said Micah Knapp, director of product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “In the coming days, we anticipate supporting Vulkan in the Snapdragon developer tools including Snapdragon Profiler and the Adreno SDK, to help application developers take advantage of this outstanding new API when creating graphics and compute applications for smartphones, tablets, VR HMDs and a variety of other types of devices that use Snapdragon processors.”
About Qualcomm Incorporated
Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) is a world leader in 3G, 4G and next-generation wireless technologies. Qualcomm Incorporated includes Qualcomm’s licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of its patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, substantially all of Qualcomm’s engineering, research and development functions, and substantially all of its products and services businesses, including its semiconductor business, QCT. For more than 30 years, Qualcomm ideas and inventions have driven the evolution of digital communications, linking people everywhere more closely to information, entertainment and each other. For more information, visit Qualcomm’s website, OnQ blog, Twitter and Facebook pages.
