Breaking the frame-buffer bottleneck with logic-enhanced memories

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.<<ETX>>