Leading Mobile Operator SK Telecom Selects OpenGL ES API as Graphics Standard for 3D Mobile Devices and Joins Khronos as Promoter

Business Wire, July 22, 2003

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SIGGRAPH 2003

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 22, 2003

AromaSoft, ChipWrights, Epson, InterGrafx, SiS,

STMicroelectronics, Sunplus, Tao Group and Xi Graphics

Join as Khronos Contributing Members

The Khronos Group today announces that SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM) has selected OpenGL ES as its standard graphics API for its 3D handheld applications and has joined as the newest Khronos Promoting Member. The Khronos Group is an industry consortium focused on the development and deployment of OpenGL(R) ES and OpenML(TM); royalty-free, open standard APIs that enable authoring and playback of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices. As the leading mobile telephone operator in South Korea, the time line of SK Telecom serves as a landmark in the history of Korean information and communication, including a successful launch of the first commercial CDMA cellular phone service in January 1996. www.sktelecom.com/english/.

Today the Khronos Group is also pleased to announce that AromaSoft, ChipWrights, Epson, InterGrafx, SiS, STMicroelectronics, Sunplus, Tao Group and Xi Graphics have joined as Contributing Members and will participate in specification development activities. These new members will further the momentum of OpenGL ES, which defines subset profiles of OpenGL(R) and brings advanced 3D graphics to a wide range of embedded systems; and OpenML 1.0 which enables developers to easily integrate video, audio and graphics capabilities into their application suites. All Khronos Members are able to contribute to the development of Khronos specifications, are empowered to vote at various stages before public deployment, and are able to accelerate the delivery of their cutting-edge 3D platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts. To inquire about joining Khronos visit: www.khronos.org/members/index.html.

"SK Telecom is a pioneer in advanced mobile telecommunication technologies and we have selected OpenGL ES as our standard graphics API for 3D handheld applications," said Won Hee Sull, Vice President of Platform R&D Center at SK Telecom. "We will work within Khronos to ensure that OpenGL ES 1.0 is rapidly deployed to create new market opportunities for us and the greater cell phone industry, and to ensure that future versions of the specification continue to meet the rapidly evolving needs of advanced handsets with accelerated graphics."

"Widespread industry acceptance is vital to the success of any standard, and the continuing growth in Khronos membership bodes very well for the rapid deployment of OpenGL ES," said Neil Trevett, senior vice president of market development at 3Dlabs, secretary of the Khronos Group and chairman of the OpenGL ES Working Group. "It is very beneficial that our new membership includes key participants from all stages of the mobile graphics landscape, and we are particularly glad to welcome our first mobile telephone operator Member SK Telecom; a ground-breaking company that already supports advanced cell-phone services."

AromaSoft is a leader in high performance field proven application run time environment for mass-market mobile communication devices. www.aromasoft.com.

ChipWrights is a fabless semiconductor company focusing on the design, development and marketing of a highly efficient RISC/DSP architecture for image and video processing. www.chipwrights.com.

Epson Research & Development (ERD) is a leader in the development of Mobile Graphics Engines for embedded systems and for the rapidly growing market of handheld devices. http://www.erd.epson.com.

InterGrafx, Inc., offers 3D imaging applications and extensions for Java and other software environments on mobile devices and delivers technologies for multimedia app and content developers. www.intergrafx.com.

Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. (SiS) is a leader in the development, manufacturing and marketing of leading-edge logic products, including core logic, connectivity, and information appliance. www.sis.com.

STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) STMicroelectronics is a global leader in developing and delivering semiconductor solutions across the spectrum of microelectronics applications. http://www.st.com.

Sunplus Technology Company Limited, is a fabless IC design company devoted to consumer applications, using audio/video, micro-processor and digital signal processor technologies. www.sunplus.com.tw.

Tao Group has developed intent(R), a binary portable, language independent, multimedia platform to enable the delivery of high quality content to home and mobile networks. http://tao-group.com.

Xi Graphics, Inc. specializes in high-performance, premium quality graphics software to support graphics hardware on computer platforms running Linux/UNIX(R) systems, and occasionally other OSx. www.xig.com.

Khronos Group Delivers on Both APIs and Hosts Speaking Sessions and Demos at SIGGRAPH

The Khronos Group invites you to visit its Booth #3535 at the SIGGRAPH tradeshow in San Diego to pick up a copy of the download instructions for the OpenML Linux/IRIX SDK and the OpenGL ES 1.0 Specification, both anticipated for release July 28, 2003; and to see OpenGL ES technology demos by Member companies Bitboys, HI Corporation, Hybrid Graphics, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Symbian and TI; and see OpenML technology demos by Member RealVision and OpenML Adopter Jahshaka.