Neon: A Big, Fast, 3D Workstation Graphics Accelerator August 17, 1998 Joel McCormack, Bob McNamara, Chris Gianos, Larry Seiler, Norm Jouppi & Ken Correll

9/21/98


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Table of Contents

Neon: A Big, Fast, 3D Workstation Graphics Accelerator August 17, 1998 Joel McCormack, Bob McNamara, Chris Gianos, Larry Seiler, Norm Jouppi & Ken Correll

Outline

What Is Neon?

Goals

Neon in a System

Design Philosophy

Why Doesn’t Hardware Do Geometry?

What is Unified Memory?

Features of Unified Memory

Why One Chip?

Neon Chip Block Diagram

Block Responsibilities: PCI Interface, Command Parser

Block Responsibilities: Fragment Generator

Block Responsibilities: Texel Central, Pixel Processors

Block Responsibilities: Video Refresh, Memory Controllers

What Makes Neon Tick? The Memory System

What Makes Neon Tick? Texture Cache

What Makes Neon Tick? Command Interface

Neon: A 10 BIP Chip

Neon: A Big Chip

Die Plot

Some Memory Bandwidth Problems

Problem: Page Crossings

Problem: Raw Memory Bandwidth

Problem: Efficient Use of Data Pins

Problem: Degenerate Triangles

Memory Usage Example: Z Buffering

Problem: Bus Latencies

Problem: Overlapping Objects Create Read/Write Inconsistency

How Effective Are These Techniques?

Performance Comparisons

Conclusions

For More Information

Author: Larry Seiler

Email: joel@pa.dec.com

Home Page: http://www.dec.com/