ESEU-a hardware architecture for fast image generation

A special-purpose hardware architecture architecture called the expandable shading engine unit (ESEU) for fast image generation and its corresponding graphics system configuration are described. Each ESEU has three major functional blocks: linear interpolator, multipliers, and edge painting tree. The linear interpolator with a coupled binary tree architecture interpolates the functional values of two end points which are view-depth values or color intensities. Two multipliers compute the input values of the interpolator in parallel. A mask pattern for the removal of data outside the given span is generated by the edge painting tree. This prototype ESEU is designed to process the data for 64 pixels. Estimated performance is about 570 K scanline-commands/s. Since there are no interconnections among ESEUs, system can be easily expanded. The bit-serial operation of ESEU guarantees the feasibility of its VLSI implementation at a reasonable cost