Creative and 3Dlabs Extend Licensing Relationship with PERMEDIA Graphics Core; Creative to integrate PERMEDIA-based 3D Graphics into future 3D Blastercards and advanced multimedia silicon devices.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 31, 1996--3Dlabs Inc., the acknowledged leader in 3D accelerator silicon, today announced that Creative Technology Ltd. (NASDAQ: CREAF), the premier developer of multimedia consumer products for personal computers, has extended its graphics core license with 3Dlabs to include the PERMEDIA(TM) graphics processor. PERMEDIA will be used in upcoming PCI 3D solutions, including Creative's 3D Blaster(TM) family of products. Creative intends to ship the first PERMEDIA-based boards during 1996.

Creative has licensed PERMEDIA under 3Dlabs' Core PartnersSM program, which allows Creative to manufacture standard PERMEDIA graphics chips for its own use, or incorporate the PERMEDIA core into fully-integrated multimedia chips. As the consumer demand for multimedia integration grows, the PERMEDIA license places Creative in a strong position to aggressively incorporate 3D graphics, windows and video acceleration in its board-level products, and to merge its own proprietary media technologies into feature-rich, single-chip 3D multimedia devices.

3Dlabs' first-generation consumer-class 3D chip, codenamed "Gigi", was custom designed exclusively for Creative by 3Dlabs under the Core Partners program. Gigi is being used on the first 3D Blaster board, which has been shipping in volume since November 1995. This product is the only 3D accelerator board bringing fast, interactive 3D gameplay to the large installed base of 486 home PCs with the VL-Bus. Creative is working closely with 3Dlabs to further optimize and extend its driver and title support for VL-based machines as it concurrently makes the PERMEDIA-enhanced 3D Blaster available on PCI-based Pentium(TM) systems.

PERMEDIA is 3Dlabs' second generation low-cost 3D silicon with more than 4X the performance of current 3D games accelerators. PERMEDIA integrates full 64-bit 2D windows acceleration, a fast 32-bit VGA and 30 frames-per-second video playback functionality as a complement to its advanced 3D rendering. PERMEDIA aggressively implements all the 2D and 3D graphics processing requirements of a PC on a single PCI Bus compatible device at high performance levels -- making it ideal for pervasive 3D applications, such as 3D Web Browsers, business applications and games. Creative's use of PERMEDIA will allow it to deliver fully integrated graphics functionality on a single board that provides no compromise 2D, video and VGA performance as well as unmatched 3D performance.

"The PERMEDIA license is important to our long-term product plans," said Hock Leow, vice president of the video and graphics product group at Creative. "PERMEDIA's second-generation performance, feature-set and scaleable architecture is the result of feedback from over 200 of Creative's ISVs. We are pleased to see that our strategic investment in 3Dlabs has paid off by enabling us to deliver the leading 3D games product for Christmas '95. We will continue to work very closely with 3Dlabs to make PERMEDIA and 3D Blaster the leading 3D architecture for pervasive 3D."

"When we first established our close alliance with Creative two years ago, we were impressed with their depth of vision for 3D graphics on the PC," said Osman Kent, president and CEO of 3Dlabs. "Since then, we have been working very closely with Creative to make that vision a reality and the timely delivery of 3D Blaster for Christmas 95 was the first milestone. We are now moving together to the next phase of that shared vision with the PERMEDIA relationship. With PERMEDIA, we are delivering second-generation performance and functionality at a time when many other companies will be delivering their first-generation devices. The robustness, functionality and performance of PERMEDIA has only been possible by drawing on our leadership experience with GLINT(R) and Gigi -- both already shipping in volume."

Technical Information

GLINT and PERMEDIA are the two complementary 3D processor families from 3Dlabs. GLINT enables VRAM-based, workstation-class graphics with support for high-resolution displays at 32 bit color and Z, and is used in PC boards aimed at the graphics professional. PERMEDIA is designed for the consumer market and brings no compromise 2D, VGA and video acceleration with GLINT-class 3D performance to low-cost graphics boards.

PERMEDIA generates 25 million texture-mapped pixels-per second with high quality, true per-pixel perspective correction and full bilinear filtering. PERMEDIA's well-balanced 3D capabilities also include rendering 500,000 50 pixel triangles-per-second with Gouraud shading, Z-buffering, fogging, blending, anti-aliasing, translucency and stencilling enabled. PERMEDIA contains a compact and highly optimized unified graphics engine, re-architected using technology developed for 3Dlabs' GLINT workstation-class graphics processors and conforms to PCI Bus (Version 2.1) specifications.

The PERMEDIA uses the industry-standard, low-cost SGRAM (Synchronous Graphics RAM) memory architecture for all of its framebuffer and auxiliary buffers such as Z and texture. With a fully synchronous 64bit external data path, the combination delivers a memory bandwidth of over 400 Mbytes/sec. Future devices in the PERMEDIA family using a higher clock frequency will raise this bandwidth to 800 Mbytes/sec -- doubling graphics performance.

Company Information

Creative Technology Ltd. develops, manufactures and markets a family of sound, video, and communications multimedia products for PCs under the Blaster(TM) family name. The company's Sound Blaster sound platform enables PCs to produce high-quality audio for entertainment, educational, music and productivity applications, and has been accepted as the industry standard for PC-based software. Creative Technology Ltd. was incorporated in 1983 and is based in Singapore. The company's stock is traded on NASDAQ under the symbol CREAF and on the Stock Exchange of Singapore.

3Dlabs is a worldwide supplier of merchant chips, software and core technology for 3D graphics. With over 10 years experience in 3D graphics, the company's products enable chip, board and system manufacturers to integrate advanced 3D capabilities into their products for such applications as multimedia, CAD, simulation, virtual reality, interactive TV and video games. 3Dlabs has consistently led the industry in being first to deliver successive generations of 3D devices that precisely meet the emerging needs of the 3D market. In a recent article the company was positioned as the "First member of the next generation of chip companies" by the influential Red Herring magazine. In January 1996, 3Dlabs' GLINT and PERMEDIA chips were honoured with a First Place Computer Graphics World Editor's Choice Award for outstanding innovation. 3Dlabs Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, CA., was founded in April 1994, and is privately owned. -0-

Note to Editors: For additional information also see Creative Technology's news release dated 31st January 1996

Sound Blaster is a registered trademark and Blaster and 3D Blaster are Technology Ltd. 3Dlabs and PERMEDIA are trademarks, and GLINT is a registered trademark of 3Dlabs Inc. Ltd. Microsoft, Windows and Direct3D are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are acknowledged.

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