S3 Announces Support for VESA's UMA Standard; VUMA Architecture to Bring Higher Price/Performance Solutions to the Mainstream PC Market.SANTA CLARA Santa Clara, city, Cuba Santa Clara (sän`tä klä`rä), city (1994 est. pop. 217,000), capital of Villa Clara prov., central Cuba. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 8, 1996--S3 Incorporated (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 :SIII) today announced its support of the Video Electronics Standards Association See VESA. (body, standard) Video Electronics Standards Association - (VESA) An industry standards organisation created in 1989 or 1990 mostly(?) concerned with IBM compatible personal computers. (VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association, Milpitas, CA, www.vesa.org) A membership organization founded in 1989 that sets interface standards for the PC, workstation and computing environments. Note the following VESA standards following this entry. ) Unified Memory Architecture (VUMA VUMA VESA Unified Memory Architecture ) standard -- an emerging system architecture that provides enhanced multimedia functionality with cost savings to the end user. At a press conference in 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. , S3 joined VESA to unveil the first set of publicly available VUMA specifications that define how software and hardware developers can quickly develop UMA-based products. In addition, S3 and other VUMA members demonstrated the first publicly available VUMA components. The UMA (1) (Unlicensed Mobile Access) See GAN. (2) (Upper Memory Area) Memory in a PC between 640K and 1M. More relevant in the days of DOS, this region was broken into Upper Memory Blocks (UMB) reserved for video memory and other architecture enables more efficient use of system memory and enables high-performance, multimedia applications such as 3D graphics and MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) An ISO/ITU standard for compressing digital video. Pronounced "em-peg," it is the universal standard for digital terrestrial, cable and satellite TV, DVDs and digital video recorders (DVRs). playback in PCs. For example, S3's first UMA product, the Trio64UV+ graphics and video accelerator A hardware component on a display adapter that speeds up full-motion video. The primary video accelerator functions are color space conversion, which converts YUV to RGB, hardware scaling, which is used to enlarge the image to full screen and double buffering which moves the frames into , eliminates the need for a separate graphics memory and enables system manufacturers to bring advanced video features and 64-bit performance to home PC users at entry-level prices. "UMA revolutionizes a decade-old PC architecture by providing increased flexibility and performance at significantly lower system costs," said Glenn Schuster, Director of Marketing, Advanced Systems, S3 Inc. "This creates a win-win for everyone, particularly the end user, who is the ultimate beneficiary of systems with greater price/performance and usability." The Trio64UV+ Solution With the advent of S3's UMA-based Trio64UV+ solution, home PC users now have the option of spending less for a higher-performing entry-level PC. By simply eliminating the need for a separate graphics 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 , the Trio64UV+ accelerator can reduce the graphics subsystem cost by up to 60 percent and yet provide up to 90 percent of the performance. Alternately, if the savings realized by removing the graphics frame buffer are invested in an L2 cache, the Trio64UV+ graphics accelerator can provide the fastest entry-level solution. This solution can deliver an average of five percent faster CPU/system performance and up to 20 percent faster graphics performance at the same cost as previous generation 32-bit, entry-level graphics solutions. The Trio64UV+ chip is fully compliant with the VUMA standard, enabling developers to quickly and easily incorporate it into upcoming UMA systems. In addition, S3 provides software support for the Trio64UV+ controller through a VUMA-compliant video BIOS as well as drivers for Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 3.11 and Windows NT; IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) OS/2, 2.1 and 3.0 (Warp); Autodesk AutoCAD and Microstation PC. Multimedia Functionality In addition to leveraging the high performance 64-bit graphics core of the highly successful S3 Trio64V+, the Trio64UV+ takes advantage of S3's Cooperative Accelerator ArchitectureTM solution to bring unprecedented multimedia functionality to entry-level PCs. The Cooperative Accelerator Architecture solution allows for video acceleration from S3's industry-leading Streams Processor technology, and the ability to directly connect to MPEG or live video through S3's Scenic Highway local peripheral bus. S3's Streams Processor technology supports on-the-fly stretching and blending of a primary RGB (Red Green Blue) The computer's native color space, which is the color system for capturing and displaying images. RGB was derived from our own perception of color because human eyes are sensitive to red, green and blue (see trichromaticity). stream and a secondary RGB or YUV/YCbCr (video) stream. Game and presentation effects include hardware double-buffering support for high-quality tear-free playback; 2-D scrolling and sprite plane support for higher performance; color and chroma keying for overlaying of graphics-onto-video and video-onto-graphics; and arithmetic blending of two pixel streams for fade-in/fade-out transition effects. Additionally, the Streams Processor technology provides hardware acceleration for Indeo, Cinepak, and software-accelerated MPEG-1 video playback. The S3 Scenic Highway local peripheral bus offers a bi-directional protocol that couples video and graphics to improve system performance and interactivity. Based on a defacto industry standard interface supported by multiple third-party video chips, the Scenic Highway interface eliminates unnecessary, expensive glue logic, enabling a low-cost upgrade to live video and MPEG-1 peripherals such as S3's Scenic/MX2 MPEG decoder. Price and Availability The S3 Trio64UV+ graphic and video accelerator is priced at $19 each in quantities of 10,000 units. Samples are available now in industry-standard 208-pin Plastic Quad Flat Pact (PQFP (Plastic Quad Flat Package) Refers to many varieties of QFP chip packages, which are molded in plastic. See QFP. ) packaging, and volume production is expected in April 1996. About S3 S3 Incorporated, headquartered in Santa Clara, California Santa Clara, California (IPA: /ˌsæntəˈklærə/) , founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852, is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. is a leading supplier of multimedia acceleration solutions for leading personal computer (PC) platforms and operating systems. S3 is committed to applying its expertise in audio, video and graphics acceleration hardware and software to create innovative and affordable products for the home, desktop and mobile markets. Except for historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release are forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including the impact of competitive products and pricing, the timely development and market acceptance of new products and upgrades to existing products, and other risks detailed from time to time in S3's SEC reports. -0- Note to Editors: S3 is a registered trademark of S3 Incorporated. The S3 corporate Logo, Trio64UV+, Trio64V+, S3's Cooperative Accelerator Architecture, Streams Processor, Scenic Highway, Scenic/MX2 are trademarks of S3 Incorporated. Other notations of TM are trademarks of their respective firms. All tradenames referenced are the service mark, trademark, or registered trademark of their respective manufacturers CONTACT: S3 Incorporated Kelly Morris, 408/980-5400 email: kmorris@S3.com or Paul Crossley, 408/980-5400 email: pcross@S3.com |
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