ARM Announces Development Kit To Reduce Time-To-Market Of Mobile Gaming Platforms

Standards-compliant ARM Mali SDK complements market-leading combination of hardware, software and tools for the development of graphics applications

CAMBRIDGE, UK – Mar. 5, 2007 –ARM today announced at the Game Developers’ Conference, San Francisco, Calif., the ARM® Mali™ Software Development Kit (SDK), which enables game developers to quickly transition from generic application development to ready-to-use designs for a wide range of handsets. Mobile handset manufacturers require that games are available at launch to capitalize on the shelf life of new devices. The Mali SDK enables developers to create and test games before silicon exists, thereby ensuring that new games are available on the day the handset is released and maximizing the time for which their games are marketable. 

The Mali SDK is the latest addition to the ARM graphics portfolio, which addresses the market need for high performance and low power consumption for games and user interfaces.  With its advanced processors, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) including the Mali55™ and Mali200™ processors, and RealView® development tools, ARM provides its silicon Partners with a complete system implementation that is as efficient as possible within the constraints of an embedded environment.

“ARM is taking its mobile strategy to the next level by introducing a new method of development which fully utilizes the hardware capabilities in mobile phones,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, president, Jon Peddie Research. “Unlike other graphics software development kits, mobile application developers can now benefit from a silicon-independent platform that offers leading ARM CPU emulation and development tools. This enables mobile game creation to start earlier in the handset design cycle, maximizing commercial return after product launch.”

The ARM graphics ecosystem enables collaboration among market leaders to link the ARM platform with a community of complementary solutions to shape the future of the graphics industry.   ARM contributes its expertise as a processor, GPU and tools vendor to enable application developers to create competitive, cutting-edge games for models pre-silicon. This mutually beneficial cooperation provides game developers, publishers and tools vendors with the differentiation necessary to lead in this competitive market.

“ARM has combined the strengths of its technologies to deliver the only commercially available, off-the-shelf virtualization product, maximizing market exposure for mobile games,” said Borgar Ljosland, graphics business development manager, ARM.  “This underscores our commitment to industry collaboration with leading tools and services vendors, game developers and game publishers.  Together with our Connected Community Partners within the graphics ecosystem, ARM will help define the future of mobile gaming by facilitating innovation in next-generation game development.”

“Ideaworks3D is expanding its partnership with ARM to enhance our software development kit for game developers in an effort to give our licensees the greatest competitive edge,” said Alex Caccia, chief executive officer, Ideaworks3D.  “In optimizing our Airplay 3.0 SDK for the innovative ARM graphics architecture, we are ensuring that game developers and publishers can immediately bring their fully optimized gaming content to semiconductor platforms and devices that incorporate the Mali55 graphics processing unit. At the Game Developers’ Conference this week, we will be demonstrating our Airplay 3.0 SDK for the Mali graphics architecture, allowing customers to see first hand the benefit of our partnership with ARM.”

The Mali SDK product features run-time code translation technology, which enables fast virtual platforms to run on a standard PC in real time.  In addition, the complete graphics solution delivers developer libraries for the APIs, which offer maximum debug visibility and profiling and analysis tools which support current and emerging standards from the Khronos consortium, including OpenGL ES technology.  The Mali SDK also includes a performance analysis tool, texture compression tool, demo engine library and import tool for quick demos and import models, a visual debugger, a CPU/GPU software model for real-time information models to port games, a shader debugger and a shader compiler. The Mali SDK will be available from ARM for commercial licensing in Q2 2007.

About ARM

ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from mobile, home and enterprise solutions to embedded and emerging applications. ARM’s comprehensive product offering includes 16/32-bit RISC microprocessors, data engines, graphics processors, digital libraries, embedded memories, peripherals, software and development tools, as well as analog functions and high-speed connectivity products. Combined with the company’s broad Partner community, they provide a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies. More information on ARM is available at http://www.arm.com.

About the ARM Connected Community

The ARM Connected Community is a global network of companies aligned to provide a complete solution, from design to manufacture and end use, for products based on the ARM architecture. ARM offers a variety of resources to Community members, including promotional programs and peer-networking opportunities that enable a variety of ARM Partners to come together to provide end-to-end customer solutions. For more information, please visit http://www.arm.com/community.

Mali SDK has received support from ARM Partners (members of the ARM Connected Community)

“We at The Code Monkeys have been developing games for portable devices since 1988.  With our unrivalled programming expertise we have delivered more than120 creative games across multiple systems to our customers over the years,” said Mark Kirkby, technical director, The Code Monkeys.  “As an industry veteran, we believe ARM’s contributions to the graphics ecosystem will strengthen our leadership as an independent gaming company by enabling us to design even more advanced games at an earlier stage in the development cycle.”

“In order to maximize revenue, we need to deploy our game titles on as many handsets as possible,” said Mark Phoenix, president and CEO, Phoenix Soft Mobile.  “Our work with ARM has greatly simplified our porting process and enabled our publishers to take maximum advantage of the limited shelf life of handsets.”

“Tira Wireless customers rely on our advanced technology to speed time to market and reduce the cost of deploying quality content,” said Allen Lau, CTO and co-founder of Tira Wireless. “The ARM Mali SDK contributes to this goal by giving game publishers access to fast and accurate virtual prototypes that can be quickly adapted to the many mobile devices in the market today.”