IBM revises XGA strategy with focus on captive use: Intel, SGS-Thomson scrap sourcing deals

Electronic News, July 26, 1993 by Richard McCausland

Intel, SGS-Thomson Scrap Sourcing Deals

NEW YORK--IBM has retreated from a campaign to establish the Extended Graphics Array architecture as a de facto standard, prompting both Intel and SGS-Thomson Micro-electronics to scrap plans to develop XGA components.

"The market has moved more toward software than hardware," said Alan Langston, manager of premium brand desktop systems for the IBM PC Co. While IBM remains committed to XGA for use within the PS/2 line, "I'm offering my customers what they want," he noted. "I'm not worried about standards."

IBM's position is in keeping with the recent shift of most of the Entry Systems Technology operation, which spearheaded XGA development, to within the PC Company, with the specific charter "to better leverage IBM technologies exclusive to its product plans" (EN, July 5). Asked if IBM has plans to license its advanced XGA-2 technology, Mr. Langston replied "As for what we are going to do from an alliance standpoint, I can't really get into that right now."

At SGS-Thomson, "We are de-emphasizing our XGA program," said Stuart McLaren, strategic marketing manager for the graphics business unit. "We are concentrating in other areas, especially the RAMDAC area where we historically have been very strong."

SGS-Thomson's Inmos subsidiary agreed two years ago to sell the IBM-manufactured Micro Channel architecture XGA chipset as the IMS G200 XGA display controller and the IMS G190 XGA serializer palette DAC (EN, Sept. 9, 1991). "We are still selling them, but we are not actively promoting them," said Mr. McLaren last week.

As reported (Antenna, July 12), Intel, too, has cancelled plans to produce XGA components under license from IBM. Shortly after Intel reached agreement last year with IBM to develop, manufacture and market XGA chipsets, "It rapidly became clear that the market was really concerned about software standards rather than hardware standards," particularly with the growing popularity of Microsoft's Windows, said Mike Eisele, assistant general manager of the Video Components division at Intel.

The success of Windows for IBM-compatible PCs, according to many in the industry, has created a software standard that has negated the importance of a register-level hardware specification, enabling software developer to write their programs directly to the graphical user interface (GUI). Moreover, even though XGA encompasses the 1024 x 768 pixel resolution of Super VGA (SVGA), and offers features designed to take advantage of Windows, it has been widely criticized for being too complex and costly for most desktop systems, since it was designed for the Micro Channel bus.

The last time IBM was able to successfully establish a PC graphics standard was in 1987, with Video Graphics Array. The market swiftly began to outpace VGA's 640 x 480 pixel performance, leading to so-called SVGA products being introduced. Another attempt by IBM to influence the direction of standards came with its 8514 graphics controller, which was incompatible with VGA. That part was later withdrawn by IBM in favor of XGA, which is VGA-compatible.

A year ago, Chips & Technologies suspended development of XGA graphics circuits, reflecting the split over whether the IBM specs would be widely adopted in PCs (EN, Desk Topics, June 29, 1992). Chips opted instead to focus on its existing graphics accelerator products.

In an effort to promulgate the XGA standard, IBM enlisted first SGS-Thomson, and then Intel, as licensees.

Intel last year disclosed plans to ship in 1993 a controller based on the XGA specs (EN, May 1, 1992). In order to get the controller on the market quickly, the product was expected to be a two-chip set, with work on a single-chip XGA controller to continue at Intel's facility in Chandler, Ariz.

Mr. Eisele last week noted the rapid emergence of "several successful hardware architectures" under the Super VGA rubric from the likes of S3, Cirrus Logic and Weitek that posed a challenge to XGA. "What they all have in common is supporting Windows software," Mr. Eisele pointed out.

With the convergence of audio and video within multimedia applications, "We wanted to add more value rather than just add another hardware graphics controller," said Mr. Eisele. "To add graphics without video, or to add video without graphics--neither makes sense in terms of the installed base."

In line with this view, Intel late last year unveiled its Indeo video technology software for i386- and i486-based PCs (EN, Dec. 14, 1992). It is capable of realtime, single-step video capture and compression with immediate playback. An enhanced version of the software is scheduled for release next month. Claude Leglise, video brand marketing director at Intel, noted in a prepared statement that "The latest enhancements significantly improve the level of video quality that can be achieved on a PC without expensive video add-on hardware."

Among licensees for the Indeo technology are such graphics hardware manufacturers as ATI Technology, Cirrus, Matrox, S3, Tseng Labs, Weitek, Western Digital, and IBM itself.