Alliance Semiconductor Adds High-Performance 3D To ProMotion® Multimedia Accelerator Family
 

Alliance Semiconductor Adds High-Performance 3D To ProMotion® Multimedia Accelerator Family ProMotion-AT3D Offers Speed, Upgradability at Mainstream Price Point 

COMDEX, Las Vegas, November 18, 1996 --- Alliance Semiconductor Corporation (Nasdaq: ALSC) today announced the new ProMotion®-AT3D accelerator, a high-performance 128-bit 3D/2D/video multimedia accelerator for personal computers. ProMotion-AT3D delivers true second-generation 3D acceleration, including on-chip hardware geometry setup, to bring the fast frame rates of console gaming to the PC platform. The new accelerator supports popular 3D applications without sacrificing the high quality 128-bit 2D and video capabilities that PC users demand. 

Together with 3Dfx Interactive, Inc., Alliance further announced that ProMotion-AT3D is the first multimedia accelerator with seamless support for 3Dfx's Voodoo Rush 3D accelerator chipset. The two companies today unveiled a unique upgrade port, jointly developed by Alliance Semiconductor and 3Dfx Interactive, which permits a Voodoo Rush upgrade module to be integrated tightly into the ProMotion-AT3D hardware and software environment. 

"This announcement enhances the technical lead Alliance ProMotion enjoys in multimedia accelerator performance, affordability and scalability,î said Sid Agrawal, Vice President of Marketing at Alliance. "ProMotion-AT3D will please the many manufacturers and end customers who have been disappointed with the slow performance and frame rates of first-generation 3D chips currently on the market. ProMotion-AT3D offers a fast 3D engine optimized for fast frame rates for mainstream users, while 3Dfx's Voodoo Rush upgrade will appeal to diehard 3D enthusiasts who want to bring the arcade experience home."

"Alliance has taken a leadership role in developing mainstream graphics technology with its ProMotion product line. Orchid's Righteous 3D, the first retail product based on 3Dfx Interactive Voodoo Graphics, has set the performance benchmark for stand-alone 3D graphics," said Bill Crouch, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Micronics/Orchid. "ProMotion-AT3D, with its Voodoo Rush upgrade option, promises to bring these two exciting technologies together to offer scaleable and flexible performance no other integrated 2D/3D accelerator can deliver."

"ProMotion-AT3D sets a new price/performance mark for 2D/3D controllers," said John Edeleanu, president of Hercules Computer Technology, Inc. "Hercules' proven engineering, drivers, and support, combined with the AT3D's performance and upgradability, will yield a compelling product for PC gamers."

Fast on-chip 3D rendering engine

ProMotion-AT3D's built-in 3D engine accelerates real-time, interactive rendering for games, modeling, virtual reality, and other applications. The engine includes geometry setup in hardware, offloading a compute-intensive bottleneck which first-generation accelerators leave to software. Other aspects of the architecture are further optimized for fast frame rate to ensure maximum interactivity. All features supported by the engine can be used simultaneously, with only one rendering pass required for any combination. "This is a significant new twist in the 3D hardware market. The pairing of Alliance's ProMotion-AT3D and 3Dfx's new Voodoo Rush gives system and board OEMs several attractive ways to deliver 3D solutions for their customers," said John Peddie of John Peddie Associates (Tiburon, CA), a leading technical marketing and management consulting firm specializing in desktop graphics. "We see the PC 3D market growing at a phenomenal rate and products like these will be able to deliver the type of experiences that motivate users to upgrade."

The ProMotion-AT3D is sampling now and priced at $29 for quantities of 10,000. Other advanced features include:

Industry-standard polygon-based rendering model 
100% perspective-correct texture mapping 
Hardware hidden surface removal 
Proprietary Pseudo-Bilinear Filtering (PBF) technology for faster, smoother images 
Advanced lighting modes, including Gouraud shade, flat shade, and full color programmable fog Support for alpha and transparency special effects 
MIP mapping with programmable map levels 
3D Accelerator upgrade port 

For even higher 3D performance, with dramatic special effects, ProMotion-AT3D supports an external 3D accelerator through the new 64-bit VR interface jointly developed with 3D technology leader 3Dfx Interactive. The first device to support the interface, announced concurrently with ProMotion-AT3D, is 3Dfx's Voodoo Rush chipset. Voodoo Rush brings 3Dfx's Voodoo Graphics technology into a tightly coupled, 2D/3D/video environment. 

"ProMotion-AT3D and the new 64-bit VR interface allow us to bring true arcade quality Voodoo technology to a new class of user," said Andy Keane, VP of Marketing at 3Dfx Interactive. "Voodoo Rush and AT3D together give all the sizzling 3D performance users expect from 3Dfx, coupled with a proven, compatible robust 2D engine. We are delighted with how successful this joint effort has been." 

Proven 128-bit 2D/video engine and drivers 

ProMotion-AT3D integrates a full-featured, 128-bit 2D and video accelerator, the fourth generation of Alliance Semiconductor's high-volume ProMotion graphics and video architecture. The ProMotion core meets the most demanding 2D and video requirements, featuring a fast 128-bit internal drawing engine; DVD and live video input port; video playback acceleration, including full bilinear filtering; and hardware gamma correction and chroma correction. 

ProMotion family accelerators are supported by a compatible, robust driver suite which has undergone thousands of hours of testing. Drivers include: 

Microsoft® Windows95; Windows NT 4.0, 3.5X; Windows 3.X Microsoft DirectX, continually updated to latest releases IBM OS/2T Warp 2.11, 2.1 ProMotion Director's Chair graphics & video utilities AutoCAD®, AutoShade®, 3D Studio SCO Open DesktopT, Linux WordPerfect® 

Company Information 

Alliance Semiconductor Corporation is a leading supplier of high performance memory and memory intensive logic products. The Company designs, develops, and manufactures its products using advanced 0.5 micron and below CMOS technology, with many of its leading edge products being developed using advanced 0.35 micron CMOS technology. The Company manufactures its products through a combination of independent manufacturing facilities and joint ventures. Alliance markets its products to the desktop and portable computing, networking, telecommunications and instrumentation markets. The Company's four, core product lines are Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Flash Memory and Multimedia Graphics. Company information can be found on our home page: http://www.alsc.com.  The Alliance logo and ProMotion are registered trademarks of Alliance Semiconductor Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders.