04 August 2009

Mentor Graphics Integrates Nucleus With ARM Mali

Mentor Graphics Corporation has confirmed the integration of its Nucleus Graphics User Interface (GUI) with the ARM Mali graphics processing unit (GPU) family of acceleration solutions.

The joint platform consists of Embedded Linux running on an ARM1176 processor with an integrated Mali-200 GPU. The tight integration of the Nucleus Graphics GUI solution with ARM’s optimized OpenGL ES device driver enables embedded designers to easily utilize the power of the GPU to deliver products with more compelling user interfaces, the company explained.

By integrating the Nucleus Graphics GUI solution with the Mali-200 GPU, it is now possible for graphic artists and usability specialists to exploit the potential of this advanced 3D accelerator. The Nucleus Graphics product abstracts the complexity of the OpenGL ES API to enable anyone to incorporate sophisticated 3D effects such as lighting, spinning, fading, twisting and zooming into their GUI designs without any programming knowledge, according to Mentor Graphics.

“OpenGL ES is a powerful but complex API and few GUI technologies available today are designed from the outset to accommodate 3D effects and layouts. As a result, getting the best out of a 3D accelerator has generally required a lot of manual embedded programming,” said Ian Smythe, director of marketing, Media Processing Division, ARM. “With this development, the Nucleus Graphics GUI solution enables anyone designing a GUI to make full use of Mali graphics acceleration capabilities.”

“The ARM Mali family of acceleration solutions is ideal for embedded systems and it is the perfect platform for Nucleus Graphics,” said Glenn Perry, Mentor Graphics Embedded Systems Division general manager. “With our partnership with ARM, I expect to see a wide range of more dynamic and visually compelling products across the automotive, consumer, medical, and industrial markets over the next couple of years.”

The ARM Mali-200 3D GPU incorporates a fully programmable vertex and fragment shader architecture, making it ideally suited to a range of applications – from advanced user interfaces and browsing experiences to console-quality gaming.

Nucleus Graphics is a 3D graphical user interface solution targeted specifically for embedded devices. It combines a highly optimized run time engine with a drag-and-drop GUI design tool, permitting compelling new embedded GUIs to be created, tested, refined and deployed quickly, without the need to modify any of the underlying application software.