Breaking the Frame-Buffer Bottleneck with Logic-Enhanced Memories

  • Authors:
  • John Poulton;John Eyles;Steven Molnar;Henry Fuchs

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-;-

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
  • Year:
  • 1992

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Abstract

Logic-enhanced memory chips that can remove the rasterizer/frame buffer bottleneck which limits the performance of current image-generation architectures are discussed. Putting pixel memory on-chip with rasterizing processors provides the two to three orders of magnitude improvement in access rates needed to support realistic shading models and aliasing in interactive systems. Current high-performance graphics systems and logic-enhanced memory architectural issues are reviewed. The design of the PixelFlow Enhanced Memory Chip (EMC), which exploits advances in semiconductor technology and circuit techniques to build compact, high-performance rasterizers, is described.