PowerVR Open-Source Vulkan Driver Adds Support For The TI AM62 SoC

Earlier this month the TI Sitara AM62 series SoCs were announced for low-power IoT, AI, and other use-cases. While being powered by uninteresting Arm Cortex-A53 cores, with the AM625 SoC part of this new Sitara line-up there is an Imagination PowerVR GPU and that is now being enabled by the new open-source Vulkan driver.

The TI AM625 isn't too interesting with being Cortex-A53 powered in 2022 but the PowerVR GPU does open it up for some edge computing and AI use-cases. The TI AM62 series SoC uses the IMG AXE-1-16M GPU that is rated for Vulkan 1.2 compatibility, up to 30% smaller than previous equivalent performance designs, and also OpenGL 3.0 and OpenGL ES 3.x capable although Imagination hasn't pursued an open-source OpenGL/GLES driver in favor of eventually just using Zink OpenGL atop Vulkan.

The TI Sitara SK-AM62 AM62x starter kit with AM625 SoC featuring PowerVR graphics.

This commit to Mesa 22.2 yesterday enables TI AM62 as a supported platform for the Imagination Tech's "PVR" Vulkan driver. This AM62 enablement was worked on by Imagination Tech engineers themselves.

Before getting too excited though over a low-cost TI Arm SoC with PowerVR graphics backed by an open-source Vulkan driver, keep in mind this driver is still in the very early stages. It still needs a capable shader compiler along with a lot of other work on the Vulkan driver code itself to be useful for end-users. Additionally, the PowerVR DRM kernel driver is still coming together and hasn't yet been mainlined. In any event, it's fun seeing Imagination finally working on this open-source 3D driver code in 2022.