3D graphics hardware IP uses OCP bus interface

By Eisaku Ohbuchi, Hardware Engineer, DMP Inc.
July 13, 2007 -- dspdesignline.com

Graphics in embedded systems such as user interfaces and games continue to evolve and improve, with enhancements such as moving from 2D based to 3D based interactive graphics. PlayStation Portable (PSP), for example, has adopted the PlayStation 2 class 3D graphics quality into the handheld device. On the other hand, in PC graphics, the programmable shader scheme, where developers can configure functionality in the vertex and fragment level, has been the major approach on DirectX and OpenGL API infrastructure, and this kind of hardware creates extremely rich content and experiences on consoles such as the Xbox360 and PlayStation 3. The graphics in embedded systems, however, create many issues and challenges that developers must address, such as low power consumption for keeping long battery life, minimized system components due to space constraints, and limited gate count for low cost.

The Khronos Group is defining the various media APIs for the embedded space, and has released a graphics API, OpenGL ES. At present, this OpenGL ES is releasing two versions 1.x and 2.x, for fixed graphics pipeline and programmable graphics pipeline, respectively, and this approach is the same as in PC graphics.

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