Google’s Tensor G5 SoC May Use Imagination Technologies’ GPU to Power Pixel 10 Series

Google Pixel 10 series is rumoured to be in development as the successor to last year's Pixel 9 lineup. Ahead of its anticipated debut, a report suggests that the company may leverage a graphics processing unit (GPU) developed by UK-based Imagination Technologies in the Tensor G5 SoC to power its purported smartphones. It could reportedly use DXT-48-1536 GPU which supports features such as scalable ray tracing, RISC-V firmware, and 2D dual-rate texturing.

Google Pixel 10 Series GPU

According to an Android Authority report, Yang Yanling, a postgraduate student, created a blog post to discuss the RISC-V and integration with Imagination GPU IP following the RISC-V Day Tokyo last month. The initial, unedited version of the text contained information about the processors using Imagination GPUs, with one of them being the in-development Tensor G5.

The GPU developer itself shared the blog post although the text has since been edited to remove any references to the purported chip. However, screenshots suggest that Google could use Imagination Technologies' DXT-48-1536 GPU. Introduced for premium handsets, this GPU can deliver ray tracing in several configurations and performance points using its ray acceleration cluster (RAC).

It also supports improved graphics performance without reducing the visual quality courtesy of Fragment Shading Rate (FSR). As per the company, it decreases the number of fragments processed, making ray-traced effects more efficient. The GPU is also claimed to have 50 percent more top-end compute and texture performance per SPU (Scalable Processing Unit) compared to the previous generation. All these features are speculated to improve the graphical fidelity of the purported Google Pixel 10 series.

Past reports suggest that the Tensor G5 SoC may come with significant changes related to the always-on compute (AoC) audio processor, the Google Emerald Hill memory coprocessor, the Google GXP (DSP), and the Google EdgeTPU. It is speculated to be fabricated using TSMC's 3nm process technology instead of Samsung Foundry, delivering performance and efficiency improvements over the Tensor G4 which powers the Pixel 9 series.