3Dlabs Redefines PC Graphics with PERMEDIA Family of Graphics Processors for Pervasive 3D; High-performance 2D, 3D, video and VGA acceleration on a single chip; PERMEDIA boards will run Creative Labs 3D Blaster games

Business Wire, Oct 23, 1995

IBM Microelectronics and 3Dlabs have closely cooperated during the development of PERMEDIA and the newly-announced IBM RGB526DB LUT-DAC is the result of this cooperative effort. Both IBM and 3Dlabs have integrated functionality into their silicon that takes full advantage of the product features designed into both chips. When the RGB526DB LUT-DAC is used in conjunction with PERMEDIA, a graphics board can offer high-quality double-buffering, in multiple independent windows - an essential feature for pervasive 3D - with no extra memory or supporting hardware.

3Dlabs will be supporting the widest range of 3D APIs in the industry with the PERMEDIA architecture, including Reality Lab and Direct 3D. Productivity application APIs such as Silicon Graphics' OpenGL, Autodesk's Heidi(TM), Apple's QuickDraw(TM) 3D will also be supported - allowing any 3D application to be accelerated by a PERMEDIA board.

Technical Information

The PERMEDIA uses the industry-standard, low-cost SGRAM (Synchronous Graphics RAM) memory architecture for all of its framebuffer and ancillary buffers such as Z and texture. With a fully synchronous 64-bit external data path, the combination delivers a memory bandwidth of up to 400 Mbytes/sec. Future devices in the PERMEDIA family using a higher clock frequency will raise this bandwidth to 800 Mbytes/sec - doubling graphics performance.

SGRAM is available from many DRAM vendors and is aggressively priced as synchronous memory becomes the de-facto choice for EDO DRAM replacement. PERMEDIA takes full advantage of SGRAM's advanced features such as block write and bit-masking. As all graphics buffers are kept in SGRAM, software has complete freedom over how the memory is used - for example, if the PERMEDIA board is being used for pure 2D work, then all the memory can be used to drive the highest possible screen resolution.

PERMEDIA uses the innovative BGA (Ball Grid Array) package to achieve ease-of-integration onto motherboards or graphics cards. PERMEDIA is a 3.3V, 0.35 micron device with an initial clock frequency of 50MHz.

Company Information

3Dlabs is a worldwide supplier of merchant chips, enabling software and technology for 3D graphics. The company's products and technologies enable silicon, board and system vendors to integrate 3D capabilities into their products for such applications as games, multimedia, CAD, simulation, virtual reality and interactive TV. 3Dlabs products are protected by over 20 US and international patents. The GLINT family of graphics processors is recognized as the industry-standard accelerator architecture for workstation-class high-performance 3D graphics on the PC, with over 40 companies having incorporated GLINT into their 3D products. Referred to by the "The Red Herring" investment magazine as "the first member of the next generation of chip vendors," 3Dlabs Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, CA., was founded in April 1994, and is privately owned. -0-

Note to Editors:

3Dlabs and PERMEDIA are trademarks, and GLINT is a registered trademark of 3Dlabs Inc. Ltd. 3D Blaster is a trademark of Creative Labs. Microsoft, Windows, Reality Lab and Direct 3D are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. OpenGL is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics Inc. QuickDraw is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc. All other trademarks are acknowledged.