CHIPS AND TECHNOLOGIES, DATABOOK ENDORSE ZV PORT STANDARD; Firms will deliver key components for complete implementation of proposed PCMCIA multimedia architecture.SAN JOSE San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 24, 1995--Chips and Technologies and Databook Inc. announced today their support for the Zoom Video (ZV) port, a proposed standard for a direct connection between 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. host adapters and CRT/flat panel controllers. The ZV port is designed to provide a low-cost, high-performance multimedia solution for portable computers. ZV will also allow the addition of complete MPEG decoders in PC Card format, greatly enhancing presentation, training, entertainment, and videoconferencing capabilities in future notebook PCs. The two firms will collaborate on the development and will jointly market the key components needed by OEMs to implement a complete ZV-Port compatible design. CHIPS will integrate both video and ZV-port capability into a future generation of its market-leading CRT/flat panel controllers. CHIPS' CRT/flat panel controllers are presently used in a wide variety of industry-leading notebooks, including systems from Toshiba, NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. , Digital Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard and Panasonic. Building on its experience with PCMCIA technology, Databook is developing the first of a new family of controllers, the TCIC-3 series, which incorporates ZV Port capabilities. The 3.3/5 volt TCIC-3 family is the industry's only controller that will operate with both unmodified Intel 82365SL B-step "point enablers" and other drivers, while guaranteeing that new, 3.3 volt PC Cards cannot accidentally be damaged should a user run older software. The controller also includes Databook's unique, fully integrated Plug-and-Play ISA (1) (Instruction Set Architecture) See instruction set. (2) (Interactive Services Association) See Internet Alliance. (3) (Internet Security and Acceleration) See .NET. which eliminates the cost and space of an external EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM) A rewritable memory chip that holds its content without power. Although EEPROMs spawned flash memory, EEPROMs are byte addressable at the write level, whereas flash chips must erase a block of bytes before rewriting. memory chip. The two firms are working to ensure system level compatibility and easy integration between their devices. The two parts will be Windows 95 compatible and will be supported by PCMCIA software packages from the leading BIOS ISVs. Low cost solution ZV port is designed to provide a low-cost alternative to the PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). and specialized video buses. By providing a direct interface to the video memory, it allows a PCMCIA card See PC Card. to write video data directly into the video frame buffer An area of memory used to hold a frame of data. Typically used for screen output, the buffer is the size of the maximum image that can be displayed on the screen. The memory, which is either a separate memory bank on the display adapter or a reserved part of regular memory, holds a . By transferring video data in real-time over a dedicated bus, it circumvents the need for a secondary buffer and eliminates the need for a PCMCIA card to provide bus mastering or bus arbitration logic. "ZV Port clearly offers the most efficient and cost-effective solution for bringing multimedia to the next generation of notebooks," said Tim Erjavec, director of product marketing for Chips and Technologies Chips and Technologies (C&T) was the first fabless semiconductor company, a model developed by its founder Gordon Campbell. Its first product was an EGA IBM compatible graphics chip. This was followed by chipsets for PC motherboards and other computer graphics chips. . "We strongly endorse the proposed standard and plan to support the architecture as we integrate full-bandwidth video capabilities into future generations of our industry-leading line of graphics controllers." With ZV-Port compliant VGA (Video Graphics Array) The display standard for the PC. All PC display adapters support VGA, and Windows machines boot up in "VGA mode" before switching to higher resolutions. and PCMCIA controllers, designers will be able to implement multimedia capabilities on a motherboard without additional chips and cost. ZV-Port's 27 Mbytes/sec sustained video rate is more than capable of meeting future high-performance video requirements, including MPEG-2. "ZV Port will support significant new capabilities in PCMCIA cards," said Daniel Sternglass, executive vice president for Databook. "Given its cost and performance advantages, we believe it will open up the market for multimedia-capable notebooks and sub notebooks. We look forward to providing the PCMCIA card adapters that designers will need to implement this major step forward in notebook performance." Redefined pins ZV Port will have a direct impact on PCMCIA host adapter design. The new structure will require 21 pin assignments in the ZV mode. While ZV-enabled PC cards will still have to meet all existing power on and hot plug-in requirements, once a card has been inserted and recognized as ZV capable, the host adapter and the card will switch to the ZV mode. In this mode, PC Card control and data signal will follow their usual datapath to the card, allowing simultaneous I/O card operation with a PC Card when it is in ZV mode. This can be used by an MPEG decoder card, for example, to send compressed digital data to the card while the card is providing the decoded video stream in real time via the ZV port. About the companies Chips and Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :CHPS CHPS Collaborative for High Performance Schools CHPS Certified in Healthcare Privacy and Security CHPS Center for Health Policy Studies (healthcare consulting firm with offices in New York, Maryland, and Illinois) CHPS Combat Hybrid Power System ) supplies advanced semiconductor devices to the worldwide personal computer industry. The company pioneered the concept of implementing discrete functions in highly integrated chipsets. CHIPS' products are found in a wide range of systems from compact portables to high performance desktop computers. Founded in 1986, Databook Inc. is a leading supplier of PCMCIA solutions. The company's product line includes interface controller ICs, both internal and external desktop adapters, and Cardtalk software. A founding and continuing PCMCIA board member, Databook also heads its Implementations Forum Committee and has chaired numerous technical subcommittees in its five year history in PCMCIA. -0- Note to Editors: Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation. All other brands or trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CONTACT: Chips and Technologies John Chan, 408/434-0600 or Databook Inc. Daniel Sternglass, 607/277-4817 or MQPR MQPR M-Ary Quadrature Partial Response Matthew Quint, 510/651-9744 |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion