ARM Announces Development Kit that Will Reduce the Time-to-Market of Mobile Gaming Platforms

At the Game Developers' Conference held in San Francisco, California, ARM announced the ARM Mali Software Development Kit (SDK), which enables game developers to quickly transition from generic application development to ready-to-use designs for a wide range of handsets.

When a mobile device is launched, manufacturers require that games are available at the same time the device is released. The Mali SDK enables developers to create and test games before the handset is released, to ensure that new games are available on the same day the handset is launched.

"ARM is taking its mobile strategy to the next level by introducing a new method of development which fully utilizes the hardware capabilities in mobile phones," said Dr. Jon Peddie, president, Jon Peddie Research. "Unlike other graphics software development kits, mobile application developers can now benefit from a silicon-independent platform that offers leading ARM CPU emulation and development tools. This enables mobile game creation to start earlier in the handset design cycle, maximizing commercial return after product launch."

The Mali SDK is the latest addition to the ARM graphics portfolio, which addresses the market need for high performance and low power consumption for games and user interfaces. With its advanced processors, Graphics Processing Units including the Mali55 and Mali200 processors, and RealView development tools, ARM provides its silicon Partners with a complete system implementation that is very efficient within the constraints of an embedded environment.

The Mali SDK product features run-time code translation technology, which enables fast virtual platforms to run on a standard PC in real time. In addition, the complete graphics solution delivers developer libraries for the APIs, which offer maximum debug visibility and profiling and analysis tools which support current and emerging standards from the Khronos consortium, including OpenGL ES technology. The Mali SDK also includes a performance analysis tool, texture compression tool, demo engine library and import tool for quick demos and import models, a visual debugger, a CPU/GPU software model for real-time information models to port games, a shader debugger and a shader compiler.

The Mali SDK will be available from ARM for commercial licensing in the second quarter of 2007.