VideoCore QPU Pipeline

As a followup to the last post, I've taken a closer look at the Quad Processor Unit that executes shaders on the VideoCore GPU. Although it superficially looks like a CPU, there are some important fundamental differences, and the reasons for them are interesting.

Life of a Triangle

A few years ago, Broadcom released full specifications for their VideoCore IV GPU, which is in the system-on-chip on the popular Raspberry Pi dev board. Before this, most details of commercial GPUs were secret. Although GPU manufacturers released white papers and some academic publications, they were often greatly simplified and lacked important details.