Imagination Technologies announces OpenVG 1.1 conformance for POWERVR SGX range of scalable graphics cores

High-performance OpenVG acceleration solutions pass Khronos-defined Conformance Test Suite

Mobile World Congress, Barcelona -- February 17, 2009: Imagination Technologies, the multimedia chip technologies company, reports that its POWERVR SGX520, SGX530 and SGX535 graphics cores have passed the Khronos™ conformance tests for OpenVG 1.1.

The cores, which range from SGX520, the world's smallest OpenGL ES 2.0 conformant core, through to high performance OpenGL ES and DirectX solutions, lead the market in delivering shader and vector graphics processing for mobile and embedded devices.

OpenVG is a royalty-free vector graphics API (application programming interface) for consumer electronics devices, enabling them to deliver sophisticated 2D graphical applications using two-dimensional Bezier-based vector and raster graphics. Implementing OpenVG using hardware acceleration enables OEMs to deliver smooth, high frame rate interactive performance at very low power levels.

Says Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination Technologies: “As a leading member of the Khronos organisation, we were delighted to be the first company to achieve OpenVG compliance for our hardware graphics technology, and to lead the field again with this new range of OpenVG compliances for POWERVR SGX. We are also announcing our new POWERVR VGX core at MWC, which meets the multimedia requirements of next-generation highly integrated applications processors where vector graphics performance is a priority. With this line of dedicated OpenVG cores and OpenVG support of our advanced graphics cores, we are confident that we have the optimum OpenVG solution for any customer.”

Says Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group: “With OpenVG, Khronos has created a low-level, Bezier-based API to streamline how high-quality, scalable 2D graphics software can take advantage of graphics hardware. OpenVG and OpenGL ES will be often used together to deliver a rich diversity of graphically rich applications and user interfaces with high-interactivity and low power levels. Imagination Technologies is to be congratulated on delivering solutions which deliver both OpenVG and OpenGL ES conformance, as well as its new dedicated OpenVG core.”

Khronos is the industry consortium responsible for the creation, maintenance and promotion of the OpenVG standard, alongside other multimedia APIs such as OpenGL, OpenGL ES and OpenMAX. Imagination is a promoting member of the organisation.

Imagination has completed conformance testing of these OpenVG implementations using the official Khronos conformance test suite, and has achieved a 100% successful pass rate for all tests. Imagination’s claims for OpenVG 1.1 conformance on these cores were formally approved by Khronos on February 16th 2009.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE:IMG) – a global leader in multimedia and communications silicon technologies – creates and licenses market-leading processor cores for graphics, video, multi-threaded embedded processing/DSP and multi-standard communications applications. These silicon intellectual property (IP) solutions for systems-on-chip (SoC) are complemented by strong array of software tools and drivers as well as extensive developer and middleware ecosystems. Target markets include mobile phone, handheld multimedia, home consumer entertainment, mobile and low-power computing, and in-car electronics. Its licensees include many of the leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies. Imagination has corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom, with sales and R&D offices worldwide. See: www.imgtec.com.