Skip to content
Tech News
← Back to articles

World’s smallest GPU silicon passes real-world testing — 240,000-transistor TinyGPU v2.0 renders 3D graphics at up to 15 FPS while v3.0 prepares for 2026 release

read original more articles
Why This Matters

The development of the world's smallest GPU silicon, TinyGPU v2.0, marks a significant milestone in miniaturized hardware, showcasing the potential for ultra-compact graphics processing solutions. This innovation could pave the way for more energy-efficient, space-saving devices and inspire further advancements in open-source hardware for the tech industry and consumers alike.

Key Takeaways

We wrote about the world’s tiniest GPU heading to production last November. Its developer, Pongsagon Vichit, has now received the finished silicon back from the Tiny Tapeout community, where it was part of the SKY 25b shuttle. “ASIC TinyGPU v2.0 is alive and working!!!” cheered the amateur ASIC/FPGA designer on social media. That’s definitely worth celebrating, and we are also happy to hear that TinyGPU v3.0 will arrive towards the end of this year.

ASIC TinyGPU v2.0 is alive and working!!!Huge thanks to the #TinyTapeout community for all the support.Check out the fully open-source design here:https://t.co/ClhiKS89st P.S. TinyGPU v3.0 is coming this December! Stay tuned.#OpenHardware #FPGA #ASIC pic.twitter.com/vgfg2ZehAuJuly 31, 2026

Above you can see the TinyGPU v2.0 SKY 25d “standalone GPU” silicon in action. At the beginning of the embedded video, Vichit has a rather low-polygon model on screen that is being manipulated by a game controller in real time. The second demo, showing a colorful zooming and rotating globe representing the Earth, is more impressive.

According to the TinyGPU v2.0 GitHub, this GPU can perform transformation & lighting plus rasterization with a maximum of 1,000 triangles on screen. It also features one dynamic directional light, flat shading, backface culling, and affine texture mapping. This finished sliver of silicon, packing around 240,000 transistors, also offers a 4-bit double buffer and an 8-bit depth buffer stored on QSPI RAM, according to its designer.

Latest Videos From Tom's Hardware Watch full video here:

In our earlier reporting, we noted that TinyGPU v2.0 was tested using a Basys3 FPGA host. This test only managed frame rates in the demo of between 7.5 and 15 FPS. The Tiny Tapeout silicon won’t run any faster than the FPGA, Vichit previously indicated, and indeed, the on-screen action doesn’t look any more fluid.

TinyGPU v3.0 ASIC details and delivery schedule

No sooner has TinyGPU v2.0 materialized than the excitement over TinyGPU v3.0 begins to build. The next-gen TinyGPU had already been submitted to Tiny Tapeout’s upcoming run before TinyGPU v2.0 was actually received and tested by Vichit. “But we all know that GPU is a cut-throat business — must release new models fast,” joked the enthusiast.

New and significant in TinyGPU v3.0 is the programmable pixel shader. In other social media posts about this upcoming GPU, Vichit reveals that it will boast the following pixel shader specs:

Lightweight DirectX 8 PS 1.1–inspired design

... continue reading