3Dlabs announces breakthrough 3D technology leveraging Intel's AGP for professional 3D graphics; GLINT Gamma integrates complete 3D geometry transform and lighting acceleration; 1,000 MFlop device processes up to 3.3 million transformed and lit polygons-per-second; First AGP chip for professional 3D boosts Intel's Visual Computing Initiative.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 1997--3Dlabs Inc. (NASDAQ:TDDDF) today revealed it has been developing a breakthrough 3D processing technology called GLINT Gamma, expected to be the first AGP-compliant (Accelerated Graphics Port) graphics product for the professional 3D graphics market.

With GLINT Gamma, 3Dlabs expects to become the first graphics semiconductor supplier to integrate acceleration for the full 3D geometry pipeline into a single merchant device.

This second-generation technology is expected to accelerate the complete 3D geometry pipeline -- including transforms, lighting, clipping and setup processing -- in a single chip which would fully utilize Intel's AGP bus architecture.

GLINT Gamma is expected to strengthen the momentum of Intel's Visual Computing Initiative and is designed to complement 3Dlabs' current and future GLINT family of products. These include the award-winning GLINT 500TX and GLINT Delta, allowing 3Dlabs-based board and system vendors to extend their range of price-performance options.

It is expected that GLINT Gamma-enabled boards will start shipping during the second half of 1997, coinciding with the availability of AGP systems.

GLINT Gamma

Most professional 3D applications, such as CAD software, use a large number of very small polygons to achieve a high level of precision. The limit to achieving higher 3D performance on the PC has been CPU floating point processing power and the bandwidth available on the PCI bus.

To meet these demands, GLINT Gamma would complement the Pentium Pro processor by providing 1Gflop (1,000 Mflops) of floating point power dedicated to 3D processing, thereby freeing the host CPU to service the demands of the application.

AGP is a high-speed bus designed by Intel to enable higher levels of performance and quality for 3D graphics and other graphics intensive applications by significantly improving the communication bandwidth between the system CPU and a dedicated 3D processor, such as GLINT Gamma.

The combination of AGP and GLINT Gamma is expected to provide a maximum throughput of 3.3 million meshed polygons-per-second with shading, transforms, lighting and backface culling enabled.

Existing geometry acceleration solutions for the PC platform typically use multiple general purpose processors, such as DSPs, on separate high-cost boards. GLINT Gamma is expected to provide a breakthrough in both price and performance for 3D acceleration by using hardwired logic to integrate 1,000 MFlops of dedicated geometry processing onto a single device.

The use of hardwired logic is expected to be more cost-effective than general purpose programmable parts and will occupy a much smaller board area, thereby allowing a complete geometry and rasterization 3D solution to be integrated onto a single AGP card.

GLINT Gamma is designed as a front-end processor for 3Dlabs' current and future GLINT family of 3D rendering chips, and is expected to provide a significant performance boost for many 3D applications and benchmarks. For example, 3Dlabs estimates that GLINT Gamma is expected to boost the Viewperf CDRS-03 benchmark from a score in the mid-twenties on current silicon to a score in the mid-forties.

GLINT Gamma is expected to support 100% of the geometry and lighting functionality of the OpenGL 1.1 API and the performance offered by GLINT Gamma would be automatically exploited by 3Dlabs' OpenGL Installable Client Driver under the Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 95 operating systems.

GLINT Gamma would extend the technology lead that 3Dlabs established with GLINT Delta, the first merchant chip to provide geometry setup processing on the PC. 3Dlabs' proprietary design technology enables most floating point algorithms to be converted into hardwired silicon cost-effectively and with relative ease.

This technology was first introduced in March 1996 with the GLINT Delta, a 100 Mflops device, which has become widely adopted in workstation-class 3D board and system level products available from AccelGraphics, Compaq, Diamond, ELSA, Hewlett-Packard, NeTpower and Symmetric.

Quotes

"We expect GLINT Gamma to be a major advance in raising 3D graphics to the next level of performance on the PC," said Neil Trevett, vice president of marketing at 3Dlabs. "The performance limit for today's professional 3D applications is geometry processing -- not fill rates. GLINT Gamma builds on the proven design of GLINT Delta and demonstrates 3Dlabs' continued technical leadership for high-performance professional 3D graphics on the PC."

"With GLINT Gamma, 3Dlabs are taking a leadership role in exploiting the advantages of AGP for professional 3D graphics, which will substantially increase the performance of professional applications on Pentium Pro processor-based systems," said Andre Wolper, director of workstation marketing at Intel.

"GLINT Gamma is aligned perfectly with Intel's Visual Computing Initiative, and will broadly enable the next level of performance in high performance OpenGL graphics on Intel architecture-based workstations."

"NeTpower expects GLINT Gamma to enable exceptional levels of 3D system performance," said Dave Ludvigson, president of NeTpower. "As a 3Dlabs Definition Partner, NeTpower has been working closely with 3Dlabs to define the capabilities of GLINT Gamma. NeTpower looks forward to working closely with 3Dlabs to bring this technology to market and further raising the competitive bar for 3D graphics performance."

"GLINT Gamma is expected to break the key bottleneck that sophisticated applications such as Lightscape are facing on the PC platform," said Glenn Raudins, marketing manager at Lightscape.

"Faster geometry processing will increase the productivity of our customers while allowing them to achieve new levels of interactive realism. 3Dlabs' dedication to producing OpenGL-compatible products, like the GLINT Gamma, enables Lightscape to harness the increases in performance without any software modifications."

Company Information

Founded in 1994, 3Dlabs is a leading innovator and a fabless supplier of high-performance graphics semiconductors, software, and related technologies designed to bring cost-effective 3D graphics to the personal computer. The company has introduced five 3D graphics processors over the last two years with price, performance and functionality designed to meet the needs of different 3D market segments on the PC.

The Company markets and sells its award-winning merchant 3D graphics processors to PC and graphics board OEM customers and selectively licenses its embeddable graphics processor cores on a royalty-bearing basis to strategic technology partners such as Texas Instruments.

Companies using 3Dlabs' graphics processors in their computers include Compaq, Digital Equipment Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, MaxVision, NEC, NeTpower and Siemens-Nixdorf. Leading board manufacturers using 3Dlabs' graphics processors include AccelGraphics, Creative Labs, Diamond Multimedia, Elsa and Symmetric.

Except for historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release, such as statements relating to the Company's ability to drive technological developments with the Company's growth and expansion into markets, the ability of the Company to successfully develop and market the GLINT Gamma if at all, the proposed features and uses of the GLINT Gamma, and the proposed timing of the introduction of the GLINT Gamma to be available for use in systems shipping in the second half of 1997 are forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including without limitation the ability of the Company to obtain design wins for GLINT Gamma; the success of the Company's customers in achieving sustained demand for systems incorporating the GLINT Gamma; the ability of GLINT Gamma to adequately meet the price/performance requirements of its customers; the introduction and impact of competitive products and pricing and of alternative technological advances; the timely and successful development, manufacture and market acceptance of GLINT Gamma to be available in systems shipping in the second half of 1997, and other risks detailed from time-to-time in 3Dlabs' SEC reports. -0-

Note to Editors: 3Dlabs and GLINT are registered trademarks and PERMEDIA, PERMEDIA NT, GLINT Delta and GLINT Gamma are trademarks of 3Dlabs Inc., Ltd. Pentium is a registered trademark of the Intel Corporation. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. OpenGL is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. All other trademarks are acknowledged and recognized.

CONTACT: 3Dlabs Inc.

Neil Trevett, 408/436-3455

http://www.3dlabs.com

[e-mail]

or

Horizon Communications

Jonathan Hirshon, 408/982-2555

[e-mail]

http://www.horizonpr.com