ATI: Less Games, More Mobile

ATI Technologies sees growth in mobile displays moving faster than PC gaming.

From the story:

"We have been pushing 3-D for handsets, but it will take a while longer. Meanwhile, mobile TV seems to be moving ahead faster in cell phones," said Azzedine Boubguira, director of marketing for ATI's handheld group.

ATI estimates it has sold 100 million of its Imageon media processors for handheld devices, including design wins in some 35 cell phone models for top-tier suppliers such as Motorola Inc. The chips support a broad range of features for a diverse set of markets.

At today's entry level, there is support for 1.3-Mpixel cameras and VGA video. Midtier markets want 3-Mpixel imaging and CIF video at 15 frames/second. The top of the line wants 5-Mpixel imaging, H.264 for video at 30 frames/s and 3-D graphics for games.

"We're targeting a whole range of devices--laptops, PDAs, portable media players and maybe even new devices people haven't conceived of yet," said Michael Schueppert, president of Modeo LLC (Houston), speaking at a panel discussion at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month."