Falanx Mali 110/55 IP Cores First to Support Latest OpenGL ES 1.1 Standard

CAMPBELL, Calif., July 27 -- Falanx Microsystems, Inc. the premier developer of mobile graphics/video IP cores for System-on-Chip (SoC) semiconductor manufacturers, today announced that they are the first vendor to submit and pass conformance tests to the Khronos Group for OpenGL® ES 1.1 certification. The successful test results are for the Falanx Mali(TM)55 and Mali110 IP cores, which deliver unmatched 2D/3D graphics performance with a low gate count and low power consumption. Falanx has been a leader in promoting industry standards such as OpenGL ES, which makes Mali IP cores a reliable, cost-effective approach to SoC manufacturers who want to speed time to market through glitch-free integration of components.

"Falanx has been committed to the OpenGL ES standard since the company's inception, and even as we achieve OpenGL ES 1.1 certification, we are already working toward conformance of our Mali IP cores with the next version of OpenGL ES," said Borgar Ljosland, president and CEO of Falanx. "Our belief is that rapid and thorough conformance with industry standards is the best way to ensure the continued evolution of high-performance mobile devices, along with the applications that drive their success in the marketplace."

Falanx was the first independent graphics IP provider to submit a core- level product for testing to the Khronos OpenGL ES 1.0 conformance program, and continues to lead the way with future implementations of the OpenGL ES standard.

"Falanx has been an enthusiastic supporter of our efforts at Khronos and a valuable member of our OpenGL ES Adopters list," said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and chairman of the OpenGL ES Working Group. "We're pleased that they have embraced OpenGL ES 1.1 as a means of broadening the range of platforms and potential applications for their high-performance IP graphics cores."

OpenGL ES is a royalty-free, cross-platform API for full-function 2D and 3D graphics on embedded systems -- including handheld devices, appliances and vehicles. It is a well-defined subset of desktop OpenGL, creating a flexible and powerful low-level interface between software and graphics acceleration. OpenGL ES 1.1 includes Common and Common-Lite profiles for floating-point and fixed-point systems and the EGL(TM) specification for portably binding to native windowing systems.

The Mali Pixel Processors

Both the Mali110 and Mali55 are single pipeline 2D/3D/Video IP rasterizer cores that deliver 30fps encode and decode of video, the only advanced 16X Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) support and texture filtering for increased bandwidth savings for high-performance multimedia devices. The Mali55 is a die shrink of the Mali110, allowing for advanced multimedia capabilities for the value market. Since both use only standard interfaces and retain binary compatibility for software, the Mali110 and Mali55 do not require any modifications to the SoC environment, thereby making the solution scalable for different custom applications.

MaliGP - Geometry Processing

Used as an additional processor to either the Mali110 or Mali55, the MaliGP (geometry processor) delivers integer, floating-point and 3D graphics in a high performance media processor hardware IP core and supports all functionality specified in the OpenGL standards. This integrated geometry processor performs complex transform and lighting, while offloading the main CPU in the handheld and enables rich 3D applications to run extremely fast while consuming minimal power.

About Falanx

Falanx Microsystems develops graphics accelerator IP cores, marketed to semiconductor system-on-chip (SoC) vendors, that deliver high quality multimedia images without compromising performance, power consumption and system cost. Unlike most graphics IP cores, Falanx's Mali Graphics Core-designed from the ground-up for mobile applications such as cell phones, PDAs and portable game platforms-is the only graphics IP core offering a complete integration of 2D, 3D and video, plus software and interoperability drivers, in an all-in-one solution. Falanx is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, and is privately-held. For more information about Falanx and the Mali IP Core Family, visit www.falanx.com.

Source: Falanx Microsystems, Inc.