Neomagic Corporation

Clement K Leung

Ravi Ranganathan

A graphics controller chip has an integrated graphics memory. A wide data interface is provided to a RAM array storing graphics pixel data in the graphics memory. The wide data interface provides 256 bits of data during normal writes, but in a block-write mode the wide data interface is split into two sections. One section contains 128 bits of data, while a second section contains 128 mask bits. The data is replicated to eight half-width columns in the RAM array, while the mask bits disable writing some of the data to the RAM. Separate byte-mask bits can be provided for disabling bytes during normal mode writes, but these byte-mask bits cause multiple copies of the data to be disabled. Thus the mask bits in the second section are more useful as they can disable any individual byte in any of the eight columns. A block write of 64 2-byte pixels can be performed in a single step, as no color-data register and no mask register is needed. The 128 bits of data provide an 8-pixel data pattern which is copied to eight columns. The 8-pixel data pattern provides a complex 8-color pattern for background fills behind foreground graphics data.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Clement K Leung