VIA PM800 and PM880 IGP chipsets
 

VIA Launches PM800 and PM880 IGP Chipsets to Deliver the Hi-Def™ Visual Experience to the Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Platform

New chipsets based on revolutionary S3 Graphics UniChrome™ Pro IGP core offer support for HDTV outputs up to 1080p, hardware MPEG-2 decoding and intelligent video rendering techniques

Taipei, Taiwan, 12 March 2004 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today announced availability of the VIA PM800 and PM880 chipsets, bringing the unique Hi-Def visual experience of the S3 Graphics UniChrome Pro Integrated Graphics Processor (IGP) core to the Intel Pentium 4 processor platform for the first time.

Featuring a high-performance 2D/3D graphics engine and the revolutionary Chromotion CE Video Display Engine, UniChrome Pro offers a true Hi-Def visual experience on all display devices, including CRT and LCD screens, as well as standard and new generation digital TVs. This includes groundbreaking support for all HDTV formats, including the latest “Super” HDTV 1080p displays, setting a new standard for display support from an IGP chipset.

The Chromotion CE Video Display Engine also includes an integrated hardware MPEG-2 decoder, ensuring flawless DVD playback with ultra-low CPU utilization, and utilizes advanced video rendering techniques, such as Adaptive De-interlacing and Video De-blocking, to deliver perfect playback of interlaced video on the PC.

As more people are turning to their PCs for visual entertainment, the VIA PM800 and PM880 chipsets meet and exceed the requirements of the rapidly emerging markets for HDTV-ready Media Center PCs and small form factor/low profile PCs, as well as mainstream multimedia PCs, and clearly set new standards for IGP chipsets in these growing markets.

“The VIA PM800 and PM880 IGP chipsets accommodate the changing role of the PC, which is rapidly expanding from a simple productivity role, to delivering a much broader digital media functionality,” commented Richard Brown, Associate Vice President of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “UniChrome Pro is the first IGP chipset graphics core to truly meet the challenges this raises, delivering an outstanding digital media experience regardless of which display device you are using, while providing excellent 2D/3D graphics performance.”

About the VIA PM800 and PM880 Chipsets
In addition to providing unmatched support for HDTV outputs, flawless DVD playback and intelligent video rendering techniques through the Chromotion CE Video Display Engine, the VIA PM800 and PM880’s UniChrome Pro IGP graphics core also delivers exceptional integrated 2D/3D graphics performance. Featuring dual 128-bit pipelines and an advanced 200MHz graphics engine with support for up to 64MB of shared DDR memory, both chipsets also support an external AGP 8X port to allow the flexibility of a graphics card upgrade if required.

The PM880 features the acclaimed DualStream64™ Dual Channel DDR 400 memory controller, while the PM800 features the FastStream64™ DDR memory controller. Combined with support for the latest memory modules, both chipsets provide lightning fast memory access, ensuring optimum system performance.

In combination with the VIA VT8237 South Bridge, the VIA PM800 and PM880 offer a comprehensive range of integrated storage, multimedia and connectivity options, including native Serial ATA and V-RAID, with support for multiple RAID configurations, as well as support for VIA Vinyl Audio, and high-throughput Gigabit Ethernet with the VIA Velocity controller.

The VIA PM800 and PM880 chipsets are part of VIA's unique Modular Architecture Platform (V-MAP) strategy, which minimizes design times and time-to-market for motherboard partners through a flexible, pin-compatible design approach for VIA core-logic solutions. Motherboard partners are able to cover multiple market segments with a single design, and also benefit from a single unified driver base.

The VIA PM800 and PM 880 IGP chipsets are available now, and motherboards based on them are expected to be available in Q2 2004. For further product details, please visit the VIA website at: www.via.com.tw/en/p4-series/pm800.jsp and www.via.com.tw/en/p4-series/pm880.jsp respectively.