CeBIT 2002 Part 1 - A/V Devices & More

Imagination Technologies PowerVR MBX - 3D and MPEG4 for the PDA

PowerVR Technologies, a division of Imagination Technologies, demonstrated their PowerVR MBX technology, a complete 2D/3D graphics solution for PDAs and similar devices, like future multimedia mobile phones. This was not shown to the public, but presented in a backroom of the booth.

Contrary to what has been reported, Imagination did not present an actual prototype of the chip; instead, they showed the chip design running on a generic FPGA from Xilinx (FPGA stands for Field Programmable Gate Array - think of it as a generic chip that can be configured by software to emulate a chip design). On the FPGA, the PowerVR MBX ran at only a little over 10% of the speed of the final product - 14MHz as opposed to 120MHz for the final product. Even at this low speed, the performance was quite amazing - it reached the level of a Playstation One.

The demo system shown above was running Linux on an ARM 920 processor. Imagination ported the TombRaider engine (based on the source code for TR for PS 1) and showed it running on the 320x240 pixel LCD:

Unfortunately the demo could not be paused, this is why the photo looks a bit strange - but you can  believe us, it does look great when you see it in person.

Here's another photo of the display, while running a 3D demo. The chip supports all features of a modern graphics chip, including FSAA (antialiasing). A companion vertex geometry processor is also available for T&L operations.

The PowerVR MBX will also have features for video playback acceleration. Using the PowerVR MBX, MPEG4 playback will be possible. Again, the question many of you are probably wondering about is: Does it play DivX? PowerVR Technologies will only support "true" MPEG4; however, they said that since DivX is so similar to MPEG4, the chip should also be able to play that - provided that someone else writes the software for that. This is not totally unlikely - remember, the demo system ran Linux, and if PowerVR makes the specs available to the public, then it should only be a matter of time until the Open Source community does something about it.

PowerVR/Imagination will not manufacture or sell PowerVR MBX chips; they license their technology so that it can be integrated into chips of other manufacturers. The PowerVR MBX is suitable for integration with ARM cores. It should be available in late 2003.