A 170-MHz CMOS pixel processor for windowing graphics

Author

Schnaitter, William N. ; Urmston, Steve L. ; Pon, Allyn

Author_Institution

Brooktree Corp., San Diego, CA, USA

Volume

27

Issue

3

fYear

1992

fDate

3/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

406

Lastpage

416

Abstract

A pixel-processing RAMDAC chip, in 1.5-μm CMOS, has been designed, tested, and operated at a clock rate of over 170 MHz. The authors describe the design methodology, pipelined architecture, and delay-matched circuitry used to create the block (about 38,000 transistors) which processes the pixel words. This block provides the flexible pixel-by-pixel data manipulation needed to solve several problems encountered in windowing graphics systems of one million or more pixels per frame. The circuitry can interpret each input pixel word differently, allowing a distinct visual type and color map to be assigned to each window. Previous high-performance RAMDACs have provided only one visual type and color mapping for an entire screen, causing the colors in all but the active window to be corrupted

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; SRAM chips; VLSI; computer graphic equipment; digital-analogue conversion; graphical user interfaces; microprocessor chips; pipeline processing; 1.5 micron; 170 MHz; CMOS; RAMDACs; clock rate; color mapping; delay-matched circuitry; design methodology; pipelined architecture; pixel processor; pixel-by-pixel data manipulation; pixel-processing RAMDAC chip; windowing graphics; Buffer storage; CMOS process; Circuit testing; Clocks; Computer graphics; Displays; Fabrication; Hardware; Random access memory; Workstations;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/4.121564

Filename

121564