Bangalore March 8, 2007
– Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) and Ideaworks3D are
extending the capabilities of the OMAP™ Gaming Platform to support the
OpenKODE® 1.0 specification, addressing a wider market targeting feature
phones to high-end multimedia handsets. This platform will be one of the
first in the industry to incorporate the OpenKODE Khronos Open Development
Environment to further simplify the development and deployment of new games
across multiple mobile phone segments, creating a larger market opportunity
for game publishers.
To enable developers to
address the broadest possible market, the gaming platform has been expanded
to include TI’s OMAP 2 and OMAP-Vox™ product families. Additionally, the
offering spans both accelerated and non-accelerated 3D graphics solutions
using a common development and deployment environment through Ideaworks3D’s
Airplay™ software.
The Ideaworks3D Airplay
SDK is optimized to take advantage of TI’s OMAP2430 and OMAPV1030 processor
capabilities, while maintaining cross-platform portability. The SDK on
TI’s OMAP2430 processor takes advantage of hardware-enabled 3D graphics
to provide a premium gaming experience. The Airplay SDK on TI’s OMAPV1030
processor utilizes software graphics renderers to enable compelling casual
games for the feature phone market. Both platforms exceed the performance
guidelines being defined in a mobile gaming white paper currently under
development by the Open Mobile Alliance™ Games Services working group.
The platform will scale to support future standards such as OpenGL®
ES 2.0 with TI’s OMAP 3 product family.
“Game developers will see
dramatic reductions in development costs by utilizing the TI and Ideaworks3D
gaming platform,” said Alex Caccia, CEO, Ideaworks3D. “We have found that
game developers can achieve up to 60 percent cost savings for development
and porting of mobile games using Airplay SDK on TI’s OMAP and OMAP-Vox
platforms.”
One of the most significant
benefits of the TI and Ideaworks3D solution is that it changes the current
mobile gaming development process by allowing developers to create one
game binary which runs on leading open operating systems, including Symbian
OS™, Linux® and Microsoft® Windows Mobile®. This enables
the same code to run on a range of handsets with performance on par with
other native applications.
“Support for open standards
including OpenKODE, OpenGL ES and the OMA mobile gaming white paper is
important to advance the development of mobile games,” said Avner Goren,
marketing director of Texas Instruments Cellular Systems Solutions. “We
view these open standards as vital to the success of the mobile gaming
market and TI will continue to enhance the mobile gaming platform with
Ideaworks3D to help developers quickly deliver new and compelling games
to market.”
For handset manufacturers
and operators there are distinct benefits to using the combined TI and
Ideaworks3D gaming platform. This includes a reduction in porting costs
and development time, as well as enabling the development of higher quality
games that can be used on a broader range of handsets. Due to the portability
benefits of the gaming platform, handset manufacturers can instantly tap
into a larger catalog of mobile games by integrating the Airplay SDK into
their products, rather than porting and validating games on each new handset.
For operators, the Airplay SDK allows premium native games to be delivered
to handsets using their existing Java-based content delivery platforms.
The robust security mechanisms provided by TI’s M-Shield™ technology ensures
that platform security is maintained when installing premium native games.
At the Game Developers Conference,
March 5-8, TI and Ideaworks3D demonstrated the scalability of the Airplay
SDK on TI’s OMAP 2 and OMAP-Vox platforms in the Khronos booth 160 WH,
260 WH.
About Ideaworks3D
Ideaworks3D is a privately
held technology and game development company headquartered in London. Founded
in 1998 with a strong Oxford and Cambridge computer science and electronic
engineering pedigree, the company has an unparalleled track record of creative
innovation and technical leadership in the field of high performance mobile
gaming. Ideaworks3D's Studio is the recipient of multiple industry accolades
including two consecutive BAFTA Games Awards in 2005 and 2004 for best
handheld and mobile games. More information can be found at www.ideaworks3d.com.
Texas Instruments – Making
Wireless
TI is the leading manufacturer
of wireless semiconductors, delivering the heart of today's wireless technology
and building solutions for tomorrow. TI provides a breadth of silicon
and software and over 15 years of wireless systems expertise that spans
handsets and base stations for all communications standards, wireless LAN,
Bluetooth, A-GPS, mobile TV and Ultra Wideband. TI offers custom
to turn-key solutions, including complete chipsets and reference designs,
OMAP application processors, as well as core digital signal processor and
analog technologies built on advanced semiconductor processes. Please
visit www.ti.com/wirelesspressroom
for additional information.