IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES POWER VR SGX LEADS THE NEXT GENERATION OF MOBILE GRAPHICS

SANTA CLARA, CA, Oct. 2, 2006 -- Imagination Technologies - the leader in mobile and embedded graphics technologies - is demonstrating its PowerVR SGX next generation graphics technology at ARM Developers' Conference 2006 from October 3rd - 5th.

PowerVR SGX is the leading graphics solution for devices targeting the OpenGL ES 2.0, or equivalent, specification and accelerates not only 2D and 3D, but also video 'for free'.

Shaders are advanced effects applied to the graphics image which enable more realistic and impressive images to be created. Unlike traditional 3D rendering, shaders are programmable, enabling the content developers' creativity to become the defining factor on how a game or application looks. Advanced shaders could make a game look like a moving water colour painting or a cartoon.

Imagination has shipped the PowerVR SGX IP core to its lead licensing partners. This has enabled Imagination's lead partners to begin integration of the core into their future SoCs.

Says Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination Technologies: "PowerVR SGX has already been licensed by several of the world's top-10 semiconductor manufacturers, with an increasing number of other serious evaluations and negotiations underway. We have been heartened that after considerable technical evaluations, while also looking at competitors, these licensees have concluded that our technology offers by far the best solution available."

PowerVR SGX offers more 'real' delivered performance than competitors, taking into account that SGX far exceeds any competition in its minimization of bandwidth and maximization of tolerance to system level latency and load balancing. These factors are a consequence of PowerVR SGX's patented* tiled-based deferred rendering and multi-threaded Universal Scalable Shading Engine (USSE) architecture, and are critical in ensuring that a mobile application processor, with its constrained memory system, can deliver high performance under real conditions and not just in marketing figures.

Power consumption is minimized via this deferred rendering technology, which avoids unnecessary processing, and its multi-threaded USSE architecture. This advantage is growing more significant given the trends in programmable shaders to have considerable 'per pixel' operations that could indeed be 'deferred' (considered invisible).

PowerVR SGX's shaders are executed in parallel in the multi-threaded architecture which massively lessens the burden on the CPU when rendering scenes. The parallel, multi-threaded PowerVR SGX architecture combines highly scalable processing power with the flexibility of a programmable device, which enables SGX to perform not only 2D and 3D acceleration but also acceleration of video standards such as H.264.

Imagination's Kristof Beets will present "Integrating the PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Cores: a Sea of Possibilities" at the conference, exploring the advantages of using an integrated PowerVR graphics core, the leading graphics IP for use with ARM cores, compared to an external solution.

The success of Imagination's current generation graphics family, PowerVR MBX, licensed by many of the world's top semiconductor companies including Intel, Texas Instruments, Renesas, Freescale, Samsung, and Philips, has established PowerVR as the leading mobile and embedded graphics technology of choice. This existing technology is powering the vast majority of hardware 3D-enabled handsets and car navigation systems.

Backward compatibility with PowerVR MBX, the leading mobile 3D graphics technology, is a major advantage of PowerVR SGX, given the existing products, customer base and the growing ecosystem around PowerVR. Imagination Technologies has taken considerable steps in PowerVR SGX to ensure backward compatibility of content and tools.

Like PowerVR MBX, PowerVR SGX is fully supported with the PowerVR Insider ecosystem, the market-leading technical support and co-marketing program. See: www.powervrinsider.com.

Says Tony King-Smith, VP Marketing, Imagination Technologies: "PowerVR visual IP is supported by a rapidly growing ecosystem which includes manufacturers as well as developer and middleware support. Ecosystem support is a key PowerVR advantage and an area where we have state-of-the-art tools, many active partners and a large support team."

Imagination Technologies has one of the largest and most experienced teams in embedded and mobile graphics in the world, with close to 200 people focused in the development of the IP and the support of the ecosystem. An initial OpenGL ES 2.0 SDK is available now to lead PowerVR Insider members. Developers with shader based embedded projects should contact their Imagination Technologies representative to ensure they are connected directly to PowerVR Insider's shader experts.

Editor's Notes

*Imagination Technologies has over 16 years of experience and history in graphics with many fundamental patents that protect the technology and techniques. Among these are PowerVR's tile-based rendering patents as well as patents over fundamental multi-threaded processing. As a result Imagination Technologies is the only IP supplier able to offer an efficient and robust tiled-base rendering solution which takes advantage of an efficient universal shader technology.

About PowerVR SGX

PowerVR SGX, the new generation PowerVR GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) IP core family is part of the Imagination's PowerVR Series5 scalable and fully programmable shader graphics/video architecture. With state-of-the-art support for 2D and 3D graphics, PowerVR SGX has an industry-leading feature set that exceeds OpenGL 2.0 shader and Microsoft Vertex and Pixel Shader Model 3 requirements while maintaining backward compatibility with PowerVR MBX content. The PowerVR SGX family also accelerates vector graphics content processing, including providing class-leading OpenVG performance. PowerVR SGX family video/image decode and encode processing support covers a broad range of standards such as H.264, MPEG-4/2, VC-1 (WMV9), JPEG and others. PowerVR SGX family members target mobile, automotive, consumer and PC markets. PowerVR SGX is based on Imagination's patented tile-based rendering and multi-threading technologies.

The PowerVR Insider programme, along with extensive PowerVR SDK tools, supports the 3D graphics ecosystem, fostering relationships between semiconductor vendors, handset manufacturers and content creators, and providing an effective environment for content development so that games, user interfaces, messaging and other mobile applications will always look better and perform better on a PowerVR platform.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc - a leader in SoC IP - develops, licenses and supplies market-leading graphics, video and display cores, real-time multi-threaded DSP/RISC processors and communication and broadcast technologies for the mobile, consumer, automotive and PC markets. It supplies licensable IP (Intellectual Property) supported by advanced development tools to leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies worldwide. Imagination Technologies Group plc has its corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom and is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (FTSE:IMG). See: www.imgtec.com.

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