[snom380]

Lots of processor types are programmable, not just GPUs. Apple is well known for making purpose built chips for their hardware. Main point is that they reuse the cores across different chips. A chip with 12 camera interfaces doesn’t sound like a general purpose GPU to me.

[toasterlovin]

Just did some reading on image signal processors and then noticed that Apple calls out that the A series chips do ISP on-die rather than via a dedicated co-processor, so it seems like you’re right and a significant part of this chip is just to be a DSP of raw sensor input.

I guess the unknown is what exactly happens on this chip vs the M2. Clearly some computer vision is being done to do object/people recognition and to separate out objects in order to place the content in 3D space. And then there’s stuff like deciding when to allow the external environment to “break through” immersive content. And of course placing the content in the scene.

It seems like those would make the most sense on the R1, since it avoids contention with “userland” processes. But I don’t know if those tasks are more GPU tasks or DSP tasks. If more GPU, then I guess this thing is a SoC with a lot of die space dedicated to DSP.