Press Release
- 2004
ATI Delivers First 3D Gaming Chip For Cellphones
New Imageon™ 2300 enables amazing
3D performance on mobile phones with little impact on power consumption
Wednesday, January
7, 2004
MARKHAM, Ontario – Playing truly 3D enabled games on cellphones
is now possible thanks to the new Imageon™ 2300 multimedia
and graphics family of co-processors from ATI Technologies Inc.
(TSX: ATY, NASDAQ: ATYT). Introduced today, these new co-processors
enable game developers to go beyond simplistic game design approaches
and give users complete freedom of movement, and visually rich
3D gaming experiences.
With Imageon 2300, ATI has taken its years of 3D gaming expertise
– whether it is for the PC, notebook or console –
and applied its world leading technology to the cell phone marketplace.
The “tour-de-force” was to integrate a full fledged,
no compromise hardware 3D engine in a cost effective and power
efficient multimedia companion chip for the new generations of
feature phones.
“ATI is revolutionizing the market once more by raising
the bar and delivering yet another appealing feature to mobile
phones and handheld devices: Hardware accelerated 3D gaming,”
said Azzedine Boubguira, Director of Marketing, Handheld Products
Group, ATI Technologies Inc. “As an industry-first, Imageon
2300 enables exceptional 3D gaming that will fully leverage and
help monetize the higher bandwidth offered by 2.5G and 3G networks.”
IDC data indicates that wireless gaming is on the rise and will
generate USD $1 billion in wireless gaming revenue by 2006 for
wireless carriers in the United States.1
“Consumers will be able to enjoy a real mobile console
experience on their cell phone with the new ATI chipset,”
said Adam Comiskey, General Manager EMEA , THQ Wireless (NASDAQ:
THQI). “We were impressed with the capabilities of the Imageon
2300. The hardware 3D engine allowed us to use the original 2003
PC MotoGPII code, combining a high level of performance and graphics
that has not been seen with a software only version. With mobile
gaming moving at such a rapid pace, and THQ Wireless at the frontier
of groundbreaking products, we are delighted to be working with
ATI on this project.”
- ATI continues its groundbreaking success in the wireless marketplace
by delivering industry leading functionality designed to enhance
OEM (original equipment manufacturer) products. Imageon 2300
includes the following:
- Advanced 2D and 3D graphics;
- MPEG 4 decode with real-time video playback at 30-fps and
low power consumption;
- Video Capture Ports with support for high resolution camera
sensors (1.3M and 2M pixels);
- JPEG CODEC to compress and decompress images to be either
saved in memory and printed or shared wirelessly by the camera
phone user; and,
- Many other features such as two display engines (primary
and sub-display) and embedded frame buffer.
ATI has always been a strong believer, promoter and adopter of
industry standards. Imageon is no exception, and offers support
for the OpenGL ES rendering API – a royalty free 3D API
consisting of well-defined subset profiles of OpenGL, with custom
ATI extensions to further improve rendering performance. The goal
is to help content developers easily create advanced 3D games
and applications on a wide variety of wireless platforms.
1 IDC, U.S. Wireless Gaming Forecast Update,
2003-2008: Mobile Users Just Wanna Have Fun
“Enabling developers to tap into the incredible performance
and realism of the new ATI Imageon 2300, Mascot Capsule has optimized
its latest generation Micro3D V4 engine for the Imageon processor,”
said Carl Korobkin, President and COO of Mascot Capsule America,
a division of HI Corporation. “Providing Imageon developers
with fully-compliant, world-leading implementations of JSR184
and OpenGL ES, the latest release of our Micro3D graphics engine,
builds upon a platform currently incorporated in more than 30
million handsets and powers an impressive catalog of console-quality
games.”
Availability
ATI’s Imageon 2300 media co-processor is currently sampling.
Mass production shipments will start in Q1 2004.
ATI Technologies will exhibit its handheld products at International
CES 2004, booth 23045, South Hall, Upper Level, Las Vegas Convention
Center.
Copyright
2004 ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved. ATI and ATI product
and product feature names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks
of ATI Technologies Inc. All other company and product names are
trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Features, pricing, availability and specifications are subject
to change without notice.
About ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. is the world leader in the design and manufacture
of innovative 3D graphics and digital media silicon solutions.
An industry pioneer since 1985, ATI is the world’s foremost
visual processor unit (GPU) provider. ATI is dedicated to delivering
leading-edge performance solutions for the full range of PC and
Mac desktop and notebook platforms, workstations, set-top and
digital televisions, game consoles and handheld device markets.
With 2003 revenues in excess of US $1.3 billion, ATI has more
than 2,200 employees in the Americas, Europe and Asia. ATI common
shares trade on NASDAQ (ATYT) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ATY).
Contact Information
For media or industry analyst support, visit our Web site at
http://www.ati.com .
Other ATI Contacts:
Trevor Campbell, Manager, Porter Novelli Canada, at (416) 422-7202
or trevor.campbell@porternovelli.com
For Information:
John Swinimer, Public Relations Manager, Consumer Products Division,
ATI Technologies Inc., at (905) 882-2600 Ext. 8456 or swinimer@ati.com
For investor relations support, please contact:
Janet Craig, Director, Investor Relations, ATI Technologies Inc.,
at (905) 882-2600, Ext. 2631 or jcraig@ati.com
