Paladin

Alliance Paladin 07 Jul 1998

From OGR: Well, looks like two more companies are entering that warring arena known as the 3D hardware world. The first, Alliance Semiconductor, is going to be releasing a new 3D chipset, called the Paladin. Paladin is meant as a fairly low cost solution, and will be released in two forms, the LT and EX. The EX, their highend chip is the gamers chip, but unfortunately will only expected to perform to about the level of a 3Dfx Voodoo, although the chip didn't make CGDC so no real number are available yet. In fact, they were demoing a 3Dfx Rush chip in its place, to show about how it should do in the real world.

One particularly interesting thing that I assumed I'd never see happen is that Alliance is actually licensing Glide from 3Dfx, so their chips are actually Glide compatible. Very strange, but pretty cool really. Who knows, if this becomes a trend Glide could seriously evolve from being a 3Dfx-only API to being an all purpose low level one. More here.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 5, 1998--Alliance Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:ALSC - news) today announced its next-generation 3D graphics accelerator chip - the Paladin(TM).

This feature-rich 3D/2D/Video accelerator delivers photo-realistic 3D graphics by taking full advantage of the AGP high-speed interface with sideband addressing. The Paladin(TM) incorporates an advanced 3D set-up engine, a rich set of 3D features, 260MHz RAMDAC, and enhanced 2D and Video acceleration capabilities to fulfill the graphics quality and performance needs of consumer and business PCs.

The Paladin(TM) supports AGP interface in both 1X (66 MHz) and 2X (133 MHz) modes with full sideband addressing. Two variants of Paladin(TM) are available - Paladin(TM) LT with AGP 1X, and Paladin(TM) EX with AGP 2X. Both these versions also support PCI 2.1 interface at 33 and 66 MHz speeds. Paladin(TM) LT and Paladin(TM) EX are pin-compatible, and therefore allow manufacturers to address different market segments and price points with a common motherboard or add-in card.

The Paladin(TM) has a flexible memory interface, which supports EDO, SDRAM, and SGRAM up to 16 MB configuration.

``The Paladin(TM) LT establishes a new standard in the mainstream 3D graphics accelerator market by providing a low-cost but full-featured, true hardware 3D alternative to developers focusing on the cost-sensitive entry level consumer PCs,'' said Bharat Sastri, VP of Systems Engineering at Alliance. ``Its robust implementation of AGP 1X interface with full sideband addressing would allow developers to create high resolution 3D graphics sub-systems on motherboards or add-in cards for this segment with normal 2-4 MB memory configurations.''

Mr. Sastri added, ``Paladin(TM) EX, which supports AGP 2X with full sideband addressing, is designed to exceed the 2D and 3D graphics quality, feature set, performance, and reliability requirements of corporate users. Optimized software support for operating systems and APIs prevalent in corporate environments ensures compatibility with current and upcoming business applications. With its unmatched performance/price ratio, the Paladin(TM) EX significantly reduces the costs of enabling high-powered graphics capabilities in the entry-level to mid-range business PCs.''

Features Overview

The Paladin(TM) has a hardware 3D engine for fast rendering of fully textured, colored, and shaded 3D images of photo-realistic quality. Its fast 128-bit 2D engine provides optimized GUI acceleration. Support for advanced 3D features includes full hardware setup, full MIP map support, bi-linear filtering, full and compressed Z-buffer support, Gouraud shading, alpha blending, colored fog, colored lighting, true divide-per-pixel perspective correction, video textures and on-chip D3D texture palette. An integrated 260MHz DAC delivers resolutions up to 1600x1200 at 85Hz-refresh rate.

The Paladin(TM) also supports advanced video features such as multiple video playback windows, smooth scaling in X & Y, and color space conversion. A VESA VMI 1.4 compliant video port allows easy connection to DVD decoders, TV tuners, and other video sources. It also has a proprietary 3-line flicker filter and supports overscan/underscan for direct output to a NTSC/PAL TV with an inexpensive external video encoder. The Paladin(TM) also supports simultaneous display to a monitor and a NTSC/PAL TV.

The Paladin(TM) is manufactured with state-of-the-art process technology and is available in a 256-pin PBGA package.

Software Support

A complete set of optimized, high performance drivers for major operating systems is available, including Windows(R)95/98, WindowsNT3.5x/4.0/5.0, Windows3.x, OS/2 Warp(TM) 3.0/4.0, Linux, and support for 3D APIs such as Direct3D(TM), OpenGL(R) MCD (for WindowsNT), GLIDETM, Argonaut BRender(TM) and Criterion Renderware(TM). Industry standard Phoenix VGA BIOS is available with support for VESA DPMS power management. Alliance licenses source code to its OEM customers for customizing driver and BIOS.

Manufacturing Support

Alliance provides reference design kits, application notes, manufacturing diagnostic utilities, and excellent technical support to help OEMs shorten the design cycles and therefore benefit from the reduced time to market.

Product Availability

Paladin(TM) samples, evaluation boards, and reference design kits will start shipping later this month with volume quantities expected in June 1998. Samples, evaluation boards, and reference design kits can be ordered through Alliance's direct sales force, distributors, or manufacturers representatives.