14 DAY TRIAL // Texas Instruments announced that it had licensed the PowerVR graphic core family from Imagination Technologies and this time it's a shader programmable graphic, hidden under the PowerVR SGX brand. This is the 2D and 3D acceleration fully supporting OpenGL 2.0 Shader and Microsoft Vertex and Pixel Shader model 3.0.
The core also performs a video and image decoding and supports video formats such as MPEG 1, MPEG 2, MPEG 4, H.264, WMV and VC-1 for single an multiple streams from SD to HDTV formats. VC-1 is the equivalent of HDTV quality, 480i, 720p and 1080p.
This happened concomitantly with a collaboration agreement between Imagination and Intel, that extends the licensing and deployment of graphics and video IP cores (Intel also purchased 2.9% of Imagination shares).
Arvind Sodhani, President of Intel Capital, said that "Intel Capital's investment recognizes the importance of graphics, video, and display technologies for the PC, mobile computing and consumer markets. This investment together with the ongoing collaboration between Intel and Imagination will expand these capabilities bringing the benefits of enhanced graphics and video to customers around the world." To complete this, Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination Technologies declared: "Our relationship with Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company, has reached a new stage that will see the companies working together to enable a growing range of Intel processors with Imagination's industry-leading graphics and video capabilities. We are delighted to continue and extend this relationship with Intel for our new generation of PowerVR graphics and video cores."