Award Software seeks to Raise PC Functionality through NSP Support.MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 31, 1995--Award Software International, a leading manufacturer of high-performance ROM BIOS and PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association, San Jose, CA, www.pcmcia.org) An international standards body and trade association that was founded in 1989 to establish a standard for connecting peripherals to portable computers. PCMCIA created the PC Card. See PC Card. software, announces development of BIOS to support Intel's Native Signal Process (NSP) Platform referendum. Native Signal Processing See NSP. (NSP) which integrates standards for ease of use, multimedia, system management and performance for hardware and software raises the standard for "off the shelf" functionality of today's PCs. Award is providing two levels of NSP support. First, Award's Desktop BIOS will provide an interface to run-time software via a header which spells out vendor and platform NSP capability of a given system. Second, Award NSP BIOS support, offers strict compliance with current Peripheral Component Interconnect See PCI. (hardware) Peripheral Component Interconnect - (PCI) A standard for connecting peripherals to a personal computer, designed by Intel and released around Autumn 1993. PCI is supported by most major manufacturers including Apple Computer. (PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). ), Plug & Play and Advanced Power Management (APM) standards for software operation. "Award is backing NSP, because we believe NSP establishes a new minimum level of for x86 system functionality and that benefits everyone," states Dr. Ann Shen, v.p. of marketing and sales, Award Software International. "Award is positioning our Desktop BIOS and system software to simplify initialization and configuration for OEM PC's targeting multiple 32-bit operating environments where pre-loaded multi-tasking OSes and high speed audio/video capability are becoming standard," commented Dr. Ann Shen. "Award's NSP BIOS is an important contribution to Intel's NSP Reference Platform initiative providing a key system ingredient to OEMs allowing them to enable cost-effective multimedia and communication capabilities to PC users," said Ron Whittier, Sr. Vice President and Director of Intel Architecture Labs Intel Architecture Labs, also known as IAL, was the Personal Computer system research and development arm of Intel Corporation during the 1990s. IAL was created by Intel Vice-President Ron Whittier together with Craig Kinnie and Steven McGeady to develop the hardware and (IAL). Along with NSP support the Award Desktop BIOS also employs a great deal of built-in device detection and configuration management intelligence to aid the user. Embedded ATAPI CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). , large capacity enhanced IDE device and SCSI support provide flexible storage options for the user to select from when configuring the platform. BIOS Plug and Play extensions should also ease the task of adding new peripherals and storage devices to the system. Early samples of the NSP BIOS should be available for high-end Pentium, processor Desktop systems in the early part of Q3 '95. NSP support will become a "standard" feature for all Award P6 based BIOSes by Q4 '95. Native Signal Processing (NSP) technology enable real-time multimedia tasks, such as audio signal processing Audio signal processing, sometimes referred to as audio processing, is the processing of a representation of auditory signals, or sound. The representation can be digital or analog. or video file decompression/capture, to be done on the Pentium, processor or executed in conjunction with signal processing accelerators. NSP is currently available for PCs operating in the Windowsx environment (both Windows 3.11 and Windows '95). Intel's NSP Reference Platform guideline, announced at WINHEC WINHEC Windows Hardware Engineering Conference WINHEC World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium WINHEC Windows Hardware Engineer Conference this year, sets a baseline for a PC which can handle the demands of current and future multimedia and communications applications. Founded in 1983, Award Software International, Inc. designs, publishes and markets enabling software including BIOS and PCMCIA for personal, mobile and wireless computing and communications devices worldwide. It is a member of the PCMCIA committee and is playing a leadership position in expanding the association's worldwide acceptance. Its customers rank among the world's leaders in microprocessors, personal computers, peripherals and communication devices such as IBM, Intel, Toshiba, AT&T, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, www.amd.com) A major manufacturer of semiconductor devices including x86-compatible CPUs, embedded processors, flash memories, programmable logic devices and networking chips. , Samsung, AST (AST Computer, Irvine, CA) A PC manufacturer founded in 1980 by Albert Wong, Safi Quershey and Tom Yuen (A, S and T). It offered a complete line of PCs that sold through its dealer channel. and National Semiconductor. -0- NOTE TO EDITORS: All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CONTACT: Award Software International, Mountain View Jeffrey Flink, 415/968-4433 or Media One Cordell Koland, 415/390-0209 |
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