Thorn EMI Plc’s Inmos International has extended its colour look up table offerings – which IBM uses in the PS/2 family – with introduction of the G300 colour video controller, claiming that the part offers higher resolution graphics and faster drawing speeds for medium-to-high resolution graphics systems. The part consists of a 256 by 24-bit Colour Look-Up Table, a programmable video timing generator, 32-bit multiplexed pixel port, a triple video digital-to-analogue converter with 8-bit resolution and on chip phase lock loop. The thing comes in an 84-pin grid array or 84-pin quad cerpac. Designed for use with any powerful processor and any monitor, the part supports dual ported video RAMs and includes a bit-map management system to eliminate memory wastage and allow any number of bit maps to be used. The four 8 bit ports each take data from the video RAMs at a quarter the video rate and multiplex the inputs together so that slower RAMs can be used without slowing the thing down. It operates in two modes, one offering 256 colours from a choice of 16m, or a full 16m colours at any time. The 85MHz version of the part is available in engineering quantities now, at $175 for samples, $100 for 1,000-up, and Inmos will have 66MHz and 110MHz ones soon.
INMOS ADDS ENHANCED COLOUR CHIP
