Programmability, Scalability and Support for Leading-Edge Graphics APIs Opens
New World of Application Possibilities for Mobile Phones and Other Devices
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- At SIGGRAPH 2005 (Booth 1854,
Hall J), Falanx Microsystems, Inc., a rapidly emerging force in the mobile
graphics/video IP core market, today introduced the first in its new series of
3rd-generation IP cores for System on Chip (SoC) manufacturers. The
Mali(TM)200 is a fully programmable graphics and media acceleration core for
mobile phones that will take full advantage of the Khronos OpenGL(R) ES 2.0
programming standard, a new API designed to enable advanced 3D graphics on
mobile devices. This support for OpenGL ES and other APIs, combined with the
programmability of the Mali200 architecture, will provide mobile games
developers with a one-of-a-kind development platform for creating tomorrow's
applications.
"Until now, there have been limited tools available to create desktop
quality games or applications for mobile phones," said Borgar Ljosland,
president and CEO of Falanx. "The fully programmable Mali200 leverages the
power and versatility of the most advanced APIs, arming developers with
unmatched multimedia capabilities for creating mobile games and applications
beyond imagination."
The Mali200 feature set offers rich 3D graphics that go beyond Shader
Model 3.0, along with advanced DSP and general multimedia acceleration via
OpenGL(R) ES, OpenVG and DirectX9 among other APIs. This quality and
versatility is achieved with a low gate count, which, when combined with
power-saving features and the lowest memory bandwidth usage, results in a
elegant low-power graphics architecture. Like the rest of the family of Mali
IP cores, the Mali200 is a patent-pending single-pipeline 2D/3D/Video IP
rasterizer core that delivers 30fps video recording and playback. Mali IP
cores offer the industry's only advanced 16X Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA)
for mobile devices, along with smart texture filtering and compressions
techniques for increased bandwidth savings and the ultimate in visual quality.
Scalability on a Grand Scale
With its unique and intelligent pixel processing abilities and modular
nature, the Mali200 is ideal for use in any multimedia device requiring high
performance and low power, such as mobile phones, personal media players and
laptops. This scalability is further enhanced with support for OpenGL ES 2.0,
which is designed to bring OpenGL to multiple platforms like set-top boxes,
auto navigation systems and even state-of-the-art game consoles such as the
"PLAYSTATION(R) 3." The Mali200(TM) architecture allows for multiple cores
to be parallelized in larger footprint SoCs for desktop and integrated
graphics processing applications.
"The ability to combine high-quality graphics performance with low power
consumption is a very marketable advantage, whether it's mobile devices, game
consoles or desktop PCs," said, Dr. Jon Peddie of the leading graphics market
research firm Jon Peddie Research, in Tiburon, CA. "Falanx is taking a bold
step by expanding into these larger-platform markets, and they clearly have
something to offer with the scalability of their 3rd generation Mali IP
cores."
"The Mali cores have been designed from the ground up to support
programmable shading and other advanced graphics technologies," continued
Ljosland. "And with broad spread acceptance of the OpenGL ES standard among
multiple platforms, the Mali graphics core can take its natural evolutionary
path to full programmability and further leverage its 3D / video performance
with the signature image quality and low memory bandwidth usage."
Patented Graphics Architecture
As with all Mali IP cores, the Mali200 employs a combination of tile-based
and immediate mode rendering for efficient bandwidth usage, which results in
several competitive advantages over using a single approach. For instance, the
Mali200 eliminates up to 80 percent of the per pixel bandwidth usage of
immediate mode renderers. Additionally, data locality provides optimized
memory access patterns ensuring higher performance in high-latency systems.
Compared to a traditional tile-based renderer, the Mali200 IP core offers
significantly lower bandwidth/vertex, while its Falanx proprietary FLXTC(TM)
Texture Compression method lowers per-pixel bandwidth as well. Falanx'
proprietary tiling technique provides bandwidth/vertex similar to an immediate
mode render architecture.
These benefits can be mapped into existing system-on-chip architecture
with full support for e.g. AHB2.0 or AXI bus interface standards, a complete
in-house developed and pre-verified software stack and a unique and patented
hardware / software interface providing robust performance and ease of system
verification, The modularity and clean cut approach of the Mali solution
enables Falanx to adapt the cores on the premises of customers requirements,
and provide the maximized value and differentiation of a Mali graphics enabled
SoC.
The Mali200 cores will be available for sampling in November 2005. For
more information and request for a product demonstration, please contact Jan
Bjerke, vice president of sales and marketing for Falanx, at
jan.bjerke@falanx.com.
About Falanx
Falanx Microsystems develops graphics accelerator IP cores, marketed to
semiconductor system-on-chip (SoC) vendors, that deliver high quality
multimedia images without compromising performance, power consumption and
system cost. Unlike most graphics IP cores, Falanx's Mali Graphics Core-
designed from the ground-up for mobile applications such as cell phones, PDAs
and portable game platforms-is the only graphics IP core offering a complete
integration of 2D, 3D and video, plus software and interoperability drivers,
in an all-in-one solution. Falanx is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, and
is privately-held. For more information about Falanx and the Mali IP Core
Family, visit http://www.falanx.com.
Falanx Media Contact:
Kimberley Stowe
Falanx Director Marketing Communications
(408) 839-8750
kim.stowe@falanx.com
SOURCE Falanx Microsystems, Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.falanx.com
CONTACT:
Kimberley Stowe, Falanx Director Marketing
Communications, +1-408-839-8750, or kim.stowe@falanx.com
NOTE TO EDITORS: Falanx is scheduling a limited number of
one-on-one press meetings at booth #1854 (Hall J) during
Siggraph, August 2-4, allowing members of the media to witness
the future of its programmable graphic accelerators across
multiple platforms -- mobile, desktops and more. To schedule a
private meeting at Siggraph, please contact Kim Stowe at
kim.stowe@falanx.com or Kellie Crawley at kellie@kimstowe.com.
The company's Siggraph media kit can be viewed at the Virtual
Press Office at http://www.virtualpressoffice.com.
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