Embedded Graphics CPUs Chasing IGPs Right Out of Town; Discrete Chips Still Wear the Sherriff’s Badge

Posted 10/19/2011 at 7:29am | by Paul Lilly

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There might not be room enough in Silicon Valley and the rest of the world for both embedded graphics processors and integrated graphics processors (IGP). To wit, Jon Peddie Research claims the full scale production of scalar x86 CPUs with increasingly powerful multi-core, SIMD graphics processing elements is causing traditional IGPs to fade out of existence.

This trend might have been hard to imagine just a few short years ago. According to JPR, people both believed and hoped the CPU and GPU would never integrate due to the complexities involved on the GPU side, as well as the faster design cycles. Obviously these haven't been game stopping issues for either AMD (Fusion) or Intel (Sandy Bridge), and it's only going to get easier with time.

"With four times the number of transistors possible in the same space as the previous manufacturing node, Moore's law seems unstoppable," JPR says. "With the move to 32nm, and now 28nm the possibilities for integration of such complex and alien functionality is not only possible and feasible, but a reality."

While evidence points to IGPs fast becoming obsolete, JPR says embedded graphics pose no threat to discrete GPUs.