ARK Logic Sets Price/Performance Benchmark with New Integrated 3D Processor.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 18, 1998--

Most Affordable, Full-Featured 3D Graphics Controller on the Market, ARK 8100 Tiger 3D Accelerator Enables Workstation Like Graphics for Sub-$1000 PCs

A 3D graphics-video accelerator that offers workstation-class graphics for the sub-$1000 PC market was announced today by ARK Logic, Inc. of San Jose.

Called the ARK 8100 Tiger 3D accelerator, the device integrates a texture memory that is separate and distinct from the typical frame buffer, distinguishing it from comparable products.

By dividing the memory bus as it does, Tiger 3D incurs no performance penalty when doing complex texture manipulations since the display buffer is isolated from all texture traffic. This texture memory, which can be configured to a maximum of 4 MB, reduces the amount of "texture thrashing" that typically occurs during the rendering process.

This architecture also enables both double and triple buffering without affecting the number of textures that can be stored in local memory. In conjunction with a 64-bit frame buffer configurable to 8 MB, the Tiger 3D supports an advanced 3D-feature set at a very aggressive price point.

Unlike comparable products in its class, the Tiger 3D has a very complete feature set. In addition to flat, Gouraud and specular shading and lighting, the Tiger 3D also incorporates 32-bit true color and a 24-bit Z-buffer with an 8-bit stencil buffer. Single pass bilinear and trilinear filtering plus alpha blending and edge anti-aliasing enable the device to compete with products that cost two to three times as much.

According to Ray Lu, Co-founder and President of ARK Logic, "We decided up front to design a fully featured 3D graphics controller that would provide workstation-class performance at a very low cost. Now, consumers who buy sub $1,000 PCs no longer have to sacrifice graphics performance for cost.

"OEMs and graphics card suppliers will be delighted at the cost/performance ratio that the Tiger 3D controller offers, and we expect to see 12 MB graphics cards soon for a suggested retail price under $99. Because of its versatility, OEMs will be able to expand their product line by combining a Tiger 3D-based card with an additional daughter card to provide full DVD, Video In and Video Out capability."

Ernie Besso, ARK Logic's Director of Sales and Marketing states, "The Tiger 3D offers OEMs and consumers the freedom of choice. We have designed this product to give the maximum performance and feature set possible, in contrast to other devices which sacrifice such features as true color, high resolution support, trilinear filtering and a 24-bit Z-buffer for reductions in cost. The Tiger 3D offers the most affordable, full-featured solution on the market today."

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

The Tiger 3D combines 2D-3D graphics, full video acceleration and a choice of PCI or AGP interfaces in a single, compact 272 PBGA package. It also features an extremely flexible memory controller, as EDO, SGRAM or SDRAM can be used for the frame buffer and texture memory.

The 3D engine is capable of displaying a fully shaded, trilinear filtered, texture mapped, perspective corrected and Z buffered texel in a single clock cycle. This enable fill rates that approach over 110 million pixels per second. To feed the rendering engine's fill rate potential, a 1.7 million-polygon/second setup engine is implemented utilizing a vertex cache to maintain maximum throughput.

Tiger 3D integrates a 250 MHz RAMDAC, 100 MHz pixel clock and a video accelerator which supports multiple hardware selected video windows. The device is fully compliant with PCI 2.1 and AGP 1.0 bus standards. The Video Peripheral Interface on Tiger 3D provides a VMI compatible bus for simultaneous input/output of video to support external TV tuners, complete DVD decoding solutions and output to high quality TV/Video encoders.

ARK Logic offers enhanced Direct 3D drivers to its OEM customers designed to maximize the multimedia processing performance of the ARK 8100. In addition, complete support is offered for OpenGL (Installable Client Driver) and for Windows 95 and Windows NT.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

The ARK 8100 Tiger 3D processor is priced at $21.00 US in OEM quantities of 10,000 units. The product is sampling now and will be available in production quantities in the second quarter of 1998.

ABOUT ARK LOGIC

Founded in 1993, ARK (Advanced Rendering Kernels) Logic develops, designs, markets and sells high-performance integrated 2D-3D processors for personal computers. ARK Logic has produced a number of 2D graphic-video accelerators that have met with industry and market success. The staff at ARK Logic is comprised of industry veterans, as the key engineering and architectural staff members have come from SGI, S3 and Western Digital. ARK Logic is a fabless semiconductor company with multiple manufacturing sources. The company is a privately held corporation with venture financing from global sources.

CONTACT: ARK Logic, Inc.

Ernie Besso, 408/467-9778

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