PixelFusion and Number Nine Announce Agreement to Jointly Develop Industry's Most Powerful 3D Graphics Solution
Next-Generation PC Systems to Challenge Traditional 3D Workstation Offerings
SIGGRAPH, LOS ANGELES, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- PixelFusion Ltd., a semiconductor start-up founded to revolutionize high-performance computing, and Number Nine Visual Technology Corp. (Nasdaq: NINE - news), one of the world leaders in PC graphics and visual technology, today jointly announced that they have entered into a relationship whereby Number Nine would utilize PixelFusion's revolutionary massively parallel FUZION(TM) 150 chip to design a very high-end 3D graphics accelerator card that is specifically designed to take full advantage of AGP Pro-equipped PCs.
The new 3D accelerator should be the first graphics add-in card to incorporate Rambus® (Nasdaq: RMBS - news) RDRAM® memory - a memory that was selected for its excellent throughput characteristics. Current simulation tests show that this architecture will be able to shatter existing ProCDRS-02 benchmark scores by more than doubling the scores of today's most advanced high-end, proprietary 3D workstations.
The resulting 3D feature set and performance capabilities of the proposed solution would allow PC vendors to deliver the first true Windows NT-based 3D workstation that will rival most UNIX or proprietary 3D workstations, yet do so at a fraction of the price. According to a recent Forbes article (May 4, 1999 - forbes.com, ''a FUZION 150 graphics chip (accelerator card) would give a plain vanilla PC workstation the graphics power equal to that of a $200,000 ... workstation.''
''Major PC vendors have asked us provide a 3D graphics solution that would allow them to challenge the 3D frontier that is dominated by the workstation vendors,'' said Wallace Smith, Number Nine's President and Chief Executive Officer. ''We have been thoroughly impressed with the PixelFusion team and their groundbreaking technology and believe that by working together, we can deliver a product that will allow PC vendors to begin the inevitable assault for 3D market share in the workstation space.''
Ian Lazenby, CEO of PixelFusion, added, ''Number Nine is the ideal partner to bring our revolutionary FUZION technology to the NT workstation market. Not only does the company have the desire and resources to capture a large share of the market, but it also has the technical expertise to enhance our FUZION chip with new features and performance tuning for specific applications. We are looking forward to a long and productive partnership.''
A 3D graphics solution of this caliber would allow the PC-OEM to expand their product offering into the fast growing workstation market and allow them to compete effectively against vendors who have traditionally focused on delivering expensive, high-margin workstations that are proprietary in nature. PC vendors will be able to compete on price, deliver systems with superior 3D performance and sell solutions that contribute greater profits to the bottom line. The new accelerator will offer unmatched graphics capabilities for Windows NT professional users in the MCAE, digital content creation, visual simulation, AEC, scientific visualization and video effects markets.
PixelFusion's FUZION 150 is a 70 million-transistor, 0.25 micron chip with 24 megabits of embedded DRAM. The chip's innovative design exploits the power of massively parallel processing, to deliver performance that cannot be achieved with today's serial chips. FUZION 150's breakthrough architecture, which takes full advantage of Rambus' high memory access speeds, brings supercomputer-like performance to the PC.
The jointly developed PixelFusion/Number Nine accelerator board will incorporate from 128 megabytes to 1 gigabyte of local, on-board memory that will be used for image-store, frame buffers, display lists, multiple textures and other pertinent graphics data. Delivery is scheduled for the first half of 2000. Pricing is not available at this time.
Representatives from both companies will be presenting and demonstrating FUZION technology within the PixelFusion booth (Booth #1574) this week at the SIGGRAPH 99 conference being held in Los Angeles, California.
About PixelFusion
PixelFusion, a fabless semiconductor company, has developed a breakthrough chip architecture called FUZION(TM) that is software-driven and scalable, and will enable the company to achieve performance leadership through several generations of silicon processes. The company was founded in 1997 by leaders in massively parallel computing and high-performance graphics. PixelFusion's headquarters and R&D facilities are located in Bristol, England, with a sales and marketing office in Silicon Valley and an R&D center in North Carolina. For additional information, contact PixelFusion in the USA at (510) 521-3843, in the UK at +44 (0) 1454 878 740 or visit our Web site at: pixelfusion.com.
About Number Nine
Number Nine Visual Technology Corporation, nine.com, is a leading supplier of high-performance visual technology solutions, including video/graphics accelerator subsystems, chips and productivity-enhancing software. Number Nine is one of the first companies to offer its users drivers certified by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). The company is a pioneer in PC graphics, delivering the first 128-bit graphics accelerator, the first 256-color and 16.8 million-color cards, and four consecutive lines of 128-bit graphics chips and boards. Number Nine is a publicly-held company (Nasdaq: NINE - news) headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts, with research and development, sales and/or marketing offices in Munich, Germany and Redmond, Washington.
PixelFusion Contacts:
In the USA: Ilene Sterns, Sterling Communications, Inc., Tel.: (408) 441- 4100, isterns@sterlingpr.com
In the UK: Nancy Averis, PixelFusion Ltd., Tel.: 44 (1454) 878740, Info@pixelfusion.com
Number Nine Contacts:
Phil Parker, Corporate Communications, Tel.: (781) 869-7105 direct, 781-674-0009 main, pparker@nine.com
Steve Leon, Technopolis® Communications Inc., Tel.: (310) 670-5606, sleon@technopolis.com
William Ralph, General Manager and Investor Relations, Tel.: (781) 869-7210, wralph@nine.com
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