ATI Technologies, one of the leading manufacturers of graphics chips, said it had inked a deal with design firm Intrinsity that could allow future ATI graphics chips to run at four times their current speeds.
Intrinsity Inc., Austin, Tex., is a fabless semiconductor company whose Fast14 technology enables semiconductor logic to run at very high clock rates while using standard design tools. According to Intrinsity, circuit designers using Fast14 can be more productive, allowing them to design processors that can run at high clock rates without the tedious hand-tuning that larger companies, like Intel and AMD, use.
Intrinsity's Fast14 technology could enable ATI to design GPU logic that clocks up to four times faster than today's clock speeds, according to a company spokesman for Intrinsity. Current high end GPUs clock in the 400-600MHz range, so a chip using Fast14 technology could deliver GPUs that run in the 1.6 GHz to 2.4 GHz range. Fast14 doesn't help with memory clocks, including onboard cache memory, so only the logic portion of the chip would run at the high clock rates.
"We're combining ATI's pioneering leadership in consumer technologies with Intrinsity's proven chip-design technology to create innovative products with stunning levels of visualization and integration," said Bob Feldstein, vice president of engineering at ATI, Thornhill, Ontario, in a statement. "We selected Intrinsity after determining that Fast14 Technology can deliver up to four times the performance per silicon dollar when compared with standard design approaches."
ATI could also use the Fast14 technology to cut back on manufacturing costs. Instead of designing massive chips with 175 million transistors or more, ATI's design teams could cut back on the number of processing units. This would substantially reduce chip size, and cost, without sacrificing performance, analysts have noted. If so, this could give ATI both a cost and performance advantage over its closest rival, Nvidia Corp.
Another factor is Microsoft's much rumored Xbox2; last year, Microsoft said that ATI, and not Nvidia Corp., would suply the graphics technology for the game console. According to reports, Microsoft's Xbox group is anxious to cut costs in Xbox2, so a smaller, faster graphics unit could result in a cheaper Xbox2 bill of materials, but still offer the performance needed for next generation console games.
