NEC Selects Cirrus Logic's Laguna3D-A Graphics Accelerator For Its Newest Commercial and Home Office Personal Computers.FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 4, 1997-- Laguna3D-A's High-Quality 2D/3D Graphics and Video Performance Enhances Today's Emerging Business Multimedia Applications Cirrus Logic 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 :CRUS crus (krus) pl. cru´ra [L.] 1. leg (1). 2. a leglike part. crus ce´rebri ) today announced that its Laguna3D-A D-A Digital-to-Analog graphics accelerator (CL-GD5465) has been selected to power NEC's new PCI-based ValueStar NX and Mate NX personal computers. By utilizing the Laguna3D-A's advanced TextureJet technology and bus mastering capabilities, NEC's new Pentium-based PCs deliver high-performance 2D/3D graphics and video to today's emerging business multimedia applications, such as 3D multimedia presentations and videoconferencing. "Cirrus Logic continues to be a valued partner and supplier of high-performance graphics technology," said Katumi Fujinami, senior manager of advanced technology for 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. . "Cirrus Logic's Laguna3D-A surpasses all of our 2D/3D quality/performance benchmarks and enables our new ValueStar NX and Mate NX personal computers to provide leading graphics price/performance." "NEC's selection of our Laguna3D-A accelerator emphasizes the commercial and Small Office/Home Office See SOHO. (SOHO Soho (sōhō`, sə–), district of Westminster, London, England, known for its continental restaurants. Once a fashionable quarter, it became popular among writers and artists in the 19th cent. ) market's demand for high-quality 3D performance," said Art Swift, vice president for Cirrus Logic's PC Products Division. "We expect the 3D market to experience rapid growth in the commercial and SOHO PC markets, and we believe our Laguna3D-A accelerator is well positioned to support that growth with its optimum balance of performance, function and price." NEC's New PC98-NX Personal Computers The PC98-NX series computers are ideal for emerging multimedia networking applications. They are compatible with the On-Now power management initiative in Microsoft's Windows 95 environment and they deliver complete plug-and-play compatibility, offer the latest USB USB in full Universal Serial Bus Type of serial bus that allows peripheral devices (disks, modems, printers, digitizers, data gloves, etc.) to be easily connected to a computer. technology and provide robust software support to make the new systems easy to set up and operate. The Mate NX is a high-performance build-to-order (BTO BTO British Trust for Ornithology BTO Business Technology Optimization BTO Bachman Turner Overdrive (band) BTO Business Transformation Outsourcing BTO Build-Transfer-Operate BTO Brutto (German: Gross [quantity]) ) commercial PC designed to meet the wide range of needs encountered in the modern office environment. With the Mate NX, NEC is looking to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO (1) (Total Cost of Ownership) The cost of using a computer. It includes the cost of the hardware, software and upgrades as well as the cost of the inhouse staff and/or consultants that provide training and technical support. See ROI. ) by providing complete plug-and-play and USB compatibility to allow easy peripheral expansion, an essential feature of today's commercial PC. The ValueStar NX is an all-in-one desktop PC targeted at the SOHO users. The ValueStar NX is designed to reduce cost and deliver the latest hardware and software technologies to enable easy set-up and operation. In fact, the new system comes with CyberCoach-NX, software to help introduce the use of Windows 95 to the home office PC user. TextureJet -- High-Performance, Cost-Effective Solution Laguna3D-A utilizes Cirrus Logic's advanced TextureJet technology to provide a high-performance texture management solution that addresses the end-user's demand for a more realistic 3D experience. By implementing a hardware texture manager and sophisticated PCI/AGP bus mastering technology, the advanced TextureJet architecture can support the most demanding applications with just 2Mbytes of local graphics memory. Cirrus Logic's proprietary TextureJet architecture, allows textures to be stored in the system memory thus eliminating the need to add more than 2Mbytes of local graphics memory to support today's data intensive applications. No other accelerator architecture offers this type of efficiency in a PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). environment, giving Laguna3D-A-based systems a significant cost advantage. RDRAM (Rambus DRAM) Pronounced "r-d-ram." A dynamic RAM chip technology from Rambus, Inc., Los Altos, CA (www.rambus.com). Rambus licensed its memory designs to semiconductor companies, which manufactured the chips. Provides Additional Performance and Cost Advantages The Laguna3D family leverages the bandwidth advantages of the Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) technology to provide high-quality 2D/3D graphics and video performance. A single RDRAM delivers today's highest data-transfer rates, over 600Mbytes-per-second of memory bandwidth, yet are as affordable as conventional DRAMs, making them ideal for bandwidth intensive applications. RDRAMs use a high-speed, 8-bit-wide interface, which minimizes the number of controller pins required for the memory interface and allows Cirrus Logic's Laguna3D-A accelerator to connect to the lowest cost, single-chip 2Mbyte memory solution on the market today. High-Quality Video Playback In addition to providing outstanding graphics performance, the Laguna3D-A accelerator also delivers high-quality video playback. Through the use of color-key and chroma-key operations, graphics and video are combined efficiently and seamlessly. The chip's high-performance video playback acceleration provides single-pass X and Y interpolated interpolated /in·ter·po·lat·ed/ (in-ter´po-la?ted) inserted between other elements or parts. scaling, YUV-to-RGB conversion and hardware occlusion occlusion /oc·clu·sion/ (o-kloo´zhun) 1. obstruction. 2. the trapping of a liquid or gas within cavities in a solid or on its surface. 3. , all of which deliver better performance while enhancing video quality at 30 frames per second. MPEG-2/DVD Optimized Playback The Laguna3D-A accelerator is capable of "de-interlacing" the interlaced Refers to a display system or image that uses interlacing and does not render contiguous lines one after the other. See interlace and interlaced GIF. frame format of MPEG-2/DVD video for display on a progressive scan (non-interlaced) monitor. The chip's de-interlacing features which include field capture, shift, and quality vertical interpolated zoom, make this conversion to a non-interlaced output visually smooth without introducing blocky lines or fuzzy edges. These de-interlacing capabilities enable the end-user to enjoy crisp, clear MPEG-2/DVD video playback on their PC. The V-Port Advantage Key to the chip's ability to support multimedia business applications is the V-Port, a video input port which is compliant with the industry standard VMI VMI Virginia Military Institute VMI Vendor Managed Inventory VMI Vertical Motion Index VMI Valtakunnan Metsien Inventointi (Finnish: National Forest Inventory) VMI Video Module Interface (Video Manager Interface) hardware specification. Cirrus Logic also supplies VPM VPM Vibrations Per Minute (engineering) VPM Vampire Princess Miyu (anime) VPM Video Port Manager VPM Virtual Product Management VPM Ventroposteromedial VPM Voice Processing Module (Video Port Manager), a standard software API which allows the Laguna3D-A accelerator to easily interface to common external video devices such as digital and analog cameras, analog video decoders and TV input devices. Together, these features make the chip ideal for implementing videoconferencing, MPEG-2 playback and networking display applications. Quick Time-To-Market To help reduce OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and design cost and time, Cirrus Logic offers both a production-ready PCI and AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) A high-speed 32-bit port from Intel for attaching a display adapter to a PC. It provides a direct connection between the card and memory, and only one AGP slot is on the motherboard. reference design kit. This design kit includes all of the technical documentation, software drivers, BIOS and utilities, plus a production-ready reference board featuring the Laguna3D-a graphics accelerator, enabling OEMs to move quickly into volume production. Cirrus Logic Cirrus Logic is a premier supplier of system-level integrated circuits that demand high-performance mixed-signal processing. The company applies its system expertise to enable high-volume applications in data storage, networking, and multimedia for both computing and consumer electronics markets as well as ultra-high-precision data acquisition applications for industrial automation and instrumentation markets. -0- Note to Editors: Cirrus Logic news releases may be obtained by fax by dialing 800/359-6414, or by dialing 510/249-4200 from outside the United States, or via the Internet on the world wide web at http://www.cirrus.com/ Cirrus Logic is a registered trademark and Laguna3D, Video Port Manager, VPM, V-Port and TextureJet are trademarks of Cirrus Logic Inc. All other product names noted herein may be trademarks of their respective holders. CONTACT: Cirrus Logic Steve Toteda, 510/226-2087 toteda@corp.cirrus.com or Tsantes & Associates Christian Bateman, 408/369-1500 x23 chris@tsantes.com |
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