MariSilicon X is an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) made by OPPO which was previously only available on flagship series phones. The good news is that the chipset that was developed specifically to support the capabilities of this camera will be present with the OPPO Reno8 series and will be ready to enter Indonesia in the near future.
What is MariSilicon X?
In the Reno Portrait Workshop event held in Jakarta, Tuesday (26/7), OPPO explained that MariSilicon X is a special chip to bring good imaging technology to a smartphone device. Then, how is it different from the built-in NPU from Qualcomm or MediaTek’s SoC (System-on-Chip)?
“MariSilicon X is OPPO’s answer to the perception of differences in results and quality between OPPO smartphone devices when using different NPUs from chipset manufacturers. The process of producing an image from a smartphone device often causes power consumption problems. Therefore, the MariSilicon X NPU was created to focus on optimizing power management and artificial intelligence computing workloads,” said Aryo Meidianto A, PR Manager of OPPO.
Aryo added, this NPU also serves to provide increased smartphone imaging capabilities for both photos and videos. MariSilicon X is a solution to the gap in power consumption, processing power, and customized imaging results and quality through AI computational photography delivered by chipset manufacturers. Furthermore, Aryo explained, if MariSilicon X already exists, the default NPU from the SoC will be automatically deactivated and MariSilicon X will only be used.
In a SoC, the NPU is a unit with the CPU and GPU. The chipset developers will add a shared DDR Bandwidth memory that works for the three parts, namely the NPU, CPU, and GPU. Because the system is shared, image processing takes longer and consumes more power.
This is what distinguishes MariSilicon X from the SoC’s built-in NPU. MariSilicon X will make imaging processing much faster, because it has a Dedicated Extra DDR Bandwidth with data transmission speeds of up to 8.5 GB/s that works exclusively.
Promise photo and video enhancement
Even more tempting, MariSilicon X is supported by Ultra High Dynamic Range with a contrast ratio of 1,000,000: 1 or 4 times the dynamic range produced by the OPPO Find X3 Pro device. This advantage will be felt when taking portrait photos with a background that is too bright due to the presence of a strong light source. High dynamic range will still provide a very clear facial structure with natural colors.
MariSilicon X also features an improved RGBW mode that delivers 1.7 times clearer textures and 2 times faster raw file processing speed. With the latest RAW algorithm, the MariSilicon X chipset can perform artificial intelligence noise reduction on each of the R/G/B color channels in parallel to produce crystal clear night portraits.
Regarding other specifications, MariSilicon X is a chipset with 6nm fabrication (TSMC) which has 18 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) AI performance. This NPU is supported by a 20bit 128dB Ultra HDR Image Signaling Processor, and is capable of recording 4K Ultra HDR and 4K Ultra Night Video.
Coming to OPPO Reno8
As mentioned above, the OPPO Reno8 series will certainly rely on the MariSilicon X NPU to support its camera capabilities. There is no information yet when the OPPO Reno8 will go on sale and at what price. However, OPPO will officially introduce this new phone on August 3, 2022
