POWERVR SGX540 from Imagination Technologies now in silicon

POWERVR SGX is now designed into more than 30 SoCs

November 25, 2008 -- Imagination Technologies, the leader in mobile graphics technologies, reports that its POWERVR SGX540 core is now in silicon.

Imagination's own evaluation silicon for SGX540, code-named 'Ares' is being demonstrated this week at an exclusive event in Tokyo for leaders in the Japanese consumer electronics and communications industry. POWERVR SGX540 typically delivers twice the performance of POWERVR SGX530 while consuming significantly less than double the silicon area or power consumption.

POWERVR SGX has already been selected for over 30 SoCs by Imagination partners. With several POWERVR SGX enabled SoCs now shipping from leading silicon companies including Intel, NEC, Renesas and Texas Instruments, Imagination is confident that POWERVR SGX is well on the way to extending the success of POWERVR MBX, the current de facto standard for mobile graphics acceleration.

Says Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination: "With POWERVR SGX540 now in silicon; POWERVR SGX520 being the world's smallest OpenGL ES 2.0 conformant core; and the first POWERVR SGX enabled phones now on sale in Japan, we have hit a run of important milestones. With several further key industry leaders also committed to POWERVR SGX based platforms and a strong pipeline of ongoing engagements we are delighted with the industry's growing acknowledgement of POWERVR SGX as the mobile and embedded graphics de facto standard.”

The POWERVR SGX architecture is uniquely scalable, with IP (Intellectual Property) cores in the family targeting entry level handsets, through smartphone and MID, navigation and DTV/STB products, up to netbooks, laptops and games consoles. The small sizes of the IP cores and the uniquely efficient patented tile-based deferred shading architecture allow chip makers to keep the clock-speed of the core low and memory bandwidth the lowest in the industry, therefore extending battery life.

POWERVR SGX's patented tiled-based deferred rendering and multi-threaded Universal Scalable Shading Engine (USSETM) keep graphics processing highly-efficient, and on chip, and are critical in ensuring that the POWERVR SGX GPU architecture delivers optimal performance from any given silicon area or memory subsystem while minimising power consumption by eliminating unnecessary processing. POWERVR SGX brings a fully unified and programmable shader environment to mobiles, while retaining full compatibility with existing POWERVR MBX applications.

About Imagination Technologies
Imagination Technologies Group plc (FTSE:IMG) – a leader in semiconductor System on Chip Intellectual Property (SoC IP) – creates and licenses market-leading embedded graphics, video and display accelerators, multi-threaded processors and multi-standard receiver technologies. These IP solutions are complemented by dynamic and extensive developer and middleware ecosystems. Target markets include digital radio and audio; mobile phone multimedia; personal media players (PMP); in-car navigation and driver information; personal navigation devices (PND); Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) and Mobile Internet Device (MID); digital TV & set-top box; and mobile TV. Its licensees include leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies, as well as innovative leading edge start-up and fabless semiconductor companies. Imagination has corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom, with sales and R&D offices worldwide. See: www.imgtec.com.