Falanx Submits Mali IP Cores to Khronos OpenGL ES Conformance Process

--  Falanx Microsystems, Inc. the developer of mobile graphics IP cores for System-on-Chip (SoC) semiconductor manufacturers, today at the Game Developers Conference announced that they have submitted their Mali55 and Mali110 IP cores to the Khronos OpenGL® ES conformance process. Falanx expects both products to successfully pass the conformance process for OpenGL® ES 1.0 and OpenGL® ES 1.1, making both Mali™ cores officially certified to use the OpenGL logo.* The successful achievement of OpenGL® ES 1.1 certification will provide valuable assurance to SoC manufacturers who rely on seamless integration of components with the latest functionality to restrain costs and quicken time to market.

"We are beginning to see an explosion in demand for 2D/3D graphics and video for mobile applications such as cell phones, PDAs and portable game platforms, and it is crucial that these new capabilities be certified for fast, reliable and power-efficient operation," said Borgar Ljosland, president and CEO of Falanx. "By fully supporting the latest version of the market-leading OpenGL® ES API, Falanx expresses our determination to offer the industry's most reliable, high-performance multimedia IP cores for the next generation of mobile devices."

Falanx has been a staunch supporter of the Khronos OpenGL® ES conformance program, and was the first independent graphics IP provider to submit a Core-level product for testing. 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 the OpenGL® desktop API, creating a flexible and powerful low-level interface between software and graphics acceleration. OpenGL® ES 1.1 adds timely functionality to encourage and enable the new functionality of new-generation embedded platforms with 3D hardware acceleration, including cell phones.

"As a part of the OpenGL® ES Adopter's Program, Falanx continues to show its strong support for Khronos in our efforts to create open standard, royalty-free APIs for all platforms and devices," said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and chairman of the OpenGL ES Working Group. "Falanx graphics solutions and software developers alike will benefit from the wide availability of OpenGL® ES and its ability to create and respond to the rapid advancements in capabilities for handheld and embedded devices."

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® ES 1.1 standard. 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.

For more information about the Mali line of graphics IP cores, visit www.falanx.com.

About Falanx ( www.falanx.com )
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.

About Khronos ( www.khronos.org )
The Khronos Group is a member-funded industry consortium focused on the creation of open standard APIs such as OpenGL® ES, OpenMAX™, OpenML™ and OpenVG™, to enable the authoring and playback of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices. All Khronos members are able to contribute to the development of Khronos API specifications, are empowered to vote at various stages before public deployment, and are able to accelerate the delivery of their cutting-edge media platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts and conformance tests.

* Product is based on the published OpenGL® ES API specification, but only successfully passing products are licensed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. to use the OpenGL® ES API trademark. Current conformance status can be found at www.khronos.org.