NEW MEGATEK GRAPHICS WORKSTATION ECLIPSES PERFORMANCE BARRIERS 2 MILLION VECTORS/SEC;240K POLYGONS/SEC;40 MILLION PIXELS/SEC IN A SUN-BASED SYSTEM SAN DIEGO -- Megatek Corporation announced today its new Sigma 70(tm) graphics workstation and established the high-water mark for super graphics workstation performance. Positioned for real-time visualization applications in military and commercial markets, the Sigma 70 delivers usable graphics speeds of 2,000,000 2-D vectors/second, 1,250,000 3-D vectors/second, 240,000 flat and 200,000 smooth-shaded polygons/second. Sigma 70 uses Sun(tm) 4 SPARC-based CPUs from Sun Microsystems, Inc. Like its predecessor, the Sigma 20(tm), it retains the complete "look and feel" of the Sun software environment. The first public showing will be at the National Computer Graphics Association Conference and Exposition in Philadelphia, April 17-20. Shipments will begin in July. Prices start at $99,950. "We really pulled out all the stops on the Sigma 70," said Megatek's Pice President of Marketing, Robert Varga. "Yet, beneath the specifications, there is a balanced design, delivering unprecedented performance that developers can exploit and users can experience. And it's packaged with a Sun CPU, the industry standard UNIX(tm) platform." "The performance specs quoted are SUSTAINED and achievable even with Z-processing," said Varga. "We know our customers do not want theoretical 'peak' specifications based on special system operating conditions. They want pixels rendered to the screen! Moreover, out graphics speeds do not rely on CPU MIPS and MFLOPS. So, when we say 'sustained', this is the graphics performance you get independent of the CPU, the system memory, floating point processing, etc. An application gets to 'own' the host completely, which is what was intended." TECHNOLOGY Megatek's Sigma 70 design provides extraordinary geometry and pixel bandwidth using state-of-the-art components in a highly parallel design. Graphics database traversal is performed by a custom bit-slice integer processor operating at 16 MIPS. Geometry transformations use four floating point units in a SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) array which delivers 145 MFLOPS of processing power. Vector and polygon pixelation is maintained with three custom bit-slice processors in another SIMD array achieving 680 MIPS. Heavy interleaving of the frame buffers improves memory access by an order of magnitude over standard VRAM implementations. A major benefit of this design is that hidden-surface processing is accomplished without degrading rendering performance. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION Sigma 70 is available in three configurations all on Sun 4 SPARC platforms with extensive options for memory, mass storage and I/O devices. Graphics subsystem options include 4-16 MBytes of display list memory to handle large graphics models. Resolution is 1280 x 1024 at 60Hz with a choice of 8, 12 or 24 bit double-buffered color planes. The graphics frame buffer also provides an additional 4-8 bits of double-buffered memory which the user can configure for overlays, underlays and cursor functions. A 20 bit Z- buffer provides hidden-surface removal with no performance penalty to system throughput. A significant feature of the Sigma 70 product line is its unique parallel frame buffer design. In addition to the graphics frame buffer, an auxiliary frame buffer is provided for tasks managed by the window system. The image driven by the graphics pipeline is seamlessly integrated into the window environment using a window concept called "portals." The result is that accelerated graphics and window processes can be displayed simultaneously on a single monitor without degrading the performance on either. Hardware support is provided for smooth horizontal and vertical scrolling of text and for real-time cursor response. SOFTWARE STORY System software for the Sigma family is standard Sun, including SunOS(tm) release 4.0 and all of Sun's popular development tools and networking solutions. Compatibility with graphics applications written for the Sun is achieved through two mechanisms. First, the Sigma 70 auxiliary frame buffer is able to mimic a Sun CG4 frame buffer. Programs that use Sun's Pixrect(tm) graphics library (e.g. SunCore(tm), SunCGI(tm), SunView(tm) and a variety of third party packages) can run on the Sigma 70 without modification or relinking. Secondly, the Sigma 70, like Sun, is supported by the GKS and PHIGS graphics standards. In addition to support for SunView, Megatek offers an optimized version of the X Window System(tm) from MIT. This X.11 R3 server is augmented by dedicated hardware that provides distinctive performance for X Window applications. Megatek also plans to support Sun's merged X/NeWS(tm) window system when it becomes available. The native graphics library for both the Sigma 20 and 70 is a high- performance, PHIGS-like package called ACCESS(tm). A companion package called EXPLORE(tm) is a prototyping and debugging tool for graphics performance. Software vendors who will support the Sigma 70 at introduction include Merit Technology Inc., Virtual Prototypes, Inc. and Sherrill- Lubinski. In addition, Megatek plans to announce other vendors who will support the Sigma family in applications that include mapping, military intelligence, simulation and animation. Founded in 1972, Megatek Corporation, a United Telecom Company, is a leading designer and manufacturer of customized high-performance graphics workstations, terminals and software used in a variety of government applications including C3I (command, control, communication, intelligence), training, simulation and real-time data analysis. Megatek also serves commercial markets requiring high-performance graphics like modeling and visualization. For more information on this or any other Megatek product contact: John Stampfli Manager, Communications 9645 Scranton Road San Diego, CA 92121 619/455-5590 Or, contact John Stampfli by email (rgs@megatek.UUCP).