IIT's New Graphics Controller Pairs VGA, 8514A on One Chip
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Integrated Information Technology, the young chipmaker that
developed a math coprocessor compatible with Intel's 80287, is
hoping to add its own three-letter combination to the world of PC
graphics. IIT has designed a new graphics controller, called the
IGA, that puts both VGA and PS/2-style 8514A graphics on the same
chip.
 
The IGA, or Integrated Graphics Array, combines a VGA controller
and an 8514A controller on a single piece of silicon. The VGA
section can handle CGA, MDA, Hercules, EGA, and standard VGA
-- up to 640 x 480 with 16 colors, or 320 x 200 with 256 colors
from a palette of 256K colors -- as well as "Super VGA," with
800 x 600 and 16 colors. The 8514A controller can go up to
1024 x 768 with 256 colors from a palette of 256K colors, and
matches the IBM 8514A graphics commands for drawing lines and
rectangles and moving graphics blocks around on the screen, IIT
says.
 
According to Gene Parrott of IIT, there are PC graphics cards
currently available that offer both VGA and 8514A compatibility,
but they really just combine 2 complete video subsystems on a
single card, each with its own memory and support chips. And
while the VGA section of one of these 2-in-1 video cards
typically uses the same DRAMs that IIT's IGA chip requires, the
8514A side usually requires VRAMs -- specially designed video
RAMs that cost 2 or 3 times what standard DRAMs cost.
 
But the IGA chip uses just 1 video subsystem and standard DRAMs.
The key to making it work, according to Dr. Y.W. Sing, IIT's vice
president for engineering, was eliminating the standard
hard-wired graphics controllers. To replace them, IIT designed a
25-MIPS RISC processor for handling graphics commands, and then
built the VGA and 8514A functions around it. "And we only use
about 50 percent of the space available for RISC code," Sing
points out -- a big advantage in case IBM changes 8514A. (IBM
hasn't officially released the specification for 8514A; the IGA
is compatible with the spec developed by Western Digital and the
VESA committee.) Sing admits that an IGA video controller board
may not be quite as fast as some systems based on VRAMs.
 
Parrott says the IGA chip is currently being tested by several
potential customers and should be appearing in half-size PC
graphics cards next year. A low-end IGA-based card might have
8514A command compatibility, 640 x 480 resolution, and a list
price as low as $399. That would change 8514A from a luxury to a
commodity, since right now 8514A cards are more expensive than
their high-performance competition, such as TIGA cards using
Texas Instruments' 32010 and 32020 graphics controllers, and much
more costly than VGA cards.
 
Contact: Integrated Information Technology, 2540 Mission College
Blvd, Suite 105, Santa Clara, CA 95054; (408) 727-1885.
 
                              --- Frank Hayes
 
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