ATI Enters Wireless Market With IMAGEON 100, the Most Advanced Display Co-Processor for Handheld Devices

Business Wire, Jan 8, 2002

Business Editors/Technology Writers

MARKHAM, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 8, 2002

PDAs and Smart Phones will be able to offer crisp

images and streaming video with ATI's

leadership graphics and MPEG4 technologies

ATI Technologies Inc. (TSE:ATY, NASDAQ:ATYT), the world's number one supplier of notebook graphics solutions, today introduced IMAGEON(TM)100, the most advanced display co-processor for handheld electronic devices such as PDAs (personal digital assistants) and data-enabled Mobile Phones.

"With the emergence of a new generation of handheld devices that feature higher performance embedded processors, increased storage capabilities as well as high bit-rate wireless technologies such as WLAN, 2.5G and 3G, end users are demanding higher resolution color displays for a better visual experience," said Adrian Hartog, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Consumer Products Division, ATI technologies Inc. "ATI's leadership in graphics technology and power management innovation has allowed us to create the IMAGEON family of products to address this exciting growth market."

The feature rich IMAGEON 100 offers OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) an opportunity to differentiate their handheld products in a fast growing market. IMAGEON 100 is the first video graphics product for handheld devices that includes support for MPEG-4 decoding, the standard for wireless streaming video, and an advanced 2D graphics engine that supports more colors and higher resolutions for brighter and crisper displays.

"The IMAGEON 100 delivers a revolution in graphics quality and battery life for PDAs and Smart Phones," said Azzedine Boubguira, Director of Marketing, Wireless Graphics, Consumer Products Division, ATI Technologies Inc. "Our solution does not impact the already tight real-estate in handheld devices since it replaces an existing component, while providing an unprecedented leap forward in graphics performance and visual quality. The addition of IMAGEON 100 to these devices reduces CPU activity by handling the graphic functions and frame buffer separately, which means significantly lower power consumption."

IMAGEON 100 introduces the handheld device and mobile communication markets to many technological enhancements traditionally found in desktop and notebook PCs, including:

-- Enhanced 2D Graphics Engine: All basic 2D acceleration functions are
supported to enable fast animation and fast drawing to the screen. IMAGEON 100
also includes advanced features such as font caching and font anti-aliasing,
alpha blending, scaling, and object rotation to enhance the visual quality and
help the creativity of content developers for the handheld market.

-- MPEG4 and JPEG decoding: The MPEG 4 hardware decode functions free up more
than 50% of MIPS power from the main CPU, resulting in the support of higher
resolutions at higher frame rates with no visual artifacts. IMAGEON 100
accelerates the following computation intensive functions in the decode
pipeline: iDCT, Motion Compensation, Scaling and Color Space Conversion.

-- Integrated Memory and Memory Controller: IMAGEON 100 includes 384 Kbytes of
embedded SRAM (static random access memory) to support double buffering of
images for higher quality graphics and video on standard PDA display
resolutions (240 x 320 pixels). In addition, it integrates an SDRAM
(synchronous dynamic random access memory) controller to support higher
resolutions (up to 800 x 600 at a color depth of 16 bpp) with external memory.

-- Power Management: The ATI power management feature called POWERPLAY(TM)
provides a combination of software and hardware capabilities that optimize
power consumption without compromising performance.

-- Host Interface: IMAGEON 100 uses a standard SRAM interface that connects
seamlessly to all industry leading embedded microprocessors such as Intel's
StrongARM and XScale, Motorola's DragonBall, NEC's MIPS processors, and
Hitachi's SH series.

-- Display Engine: The main component of the display engine is a programmable
LCD Timing Controller (or TCON). The programmability of this timing generator
gives OEMs the flexibility to interface to a large number of LCD panels from
different manufacturers. It supports from 1-bit monochrome to 18-bit color STN
or TFT panels. Other functions of the display engine are Frame Modulation,
Partial Screen Refresh, and Panel Rotation (90 degrees , 180 degrees, 270
degrees)

Availability

ATI's IMAGEON 100 media controller is currently sampling. Mass production shipments will start in February 2002.

Company background

Founded in 1985, ATI Technologies Inc. is a world leader in the supply of graphics, video and multimedia solutions for the personal computer and Mac platforms. The pioneer, innovator and market leader in the graphics industry, ATI provides cutting-edge technologies for the PC, workstation, set-top box, game console and other consumer appliances markets. The Company has more than 1,900 employees supporting customers from its headquarters in Markham, Ontario, Canada, as well as from offices in Barbados, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and the United States. ATI common shares trade on NASDAQ (ATYT) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ATY).