Qualcomm Licenses AMD 3D Graphics Technology

Qualcomm Inc. has licensed 3D graphics core technology from Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), for integration with Qualcomm's wireless chip sets for mobile gaming devices.

The licensing agreement will bring AMD's graphics technology, called Unified Shader Architecture, first introduced in the Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 gaming system, to Qualcomm's Mobile Station Modem chipsets for 3G (third generation) wireless markets, AMD said Tuesday.

With the acquisition last year of ATI Technologies Inc, AMD became a leading supplier of discrete media processors to the handheld market. The company's Imageon media processors support a variety of multimedia functions, including mobile TV, video, photography, video telephony, music and 3D graphics processing.

AMD announced in February a dedicated business to license handheld graphics technology to semiconductor manufacturers. It is also helping drive new graphics standards, such as OpenGL ES (OpenGL for Embedded Systems) 2.0 to accelerate the adoption of graphics in handheld devices. OpenGL ES is an embedded version of the OpenGL cross-platform computer graphics API (application programming interface).

Freescale Semiconductor Inc. announced last month it had licensed AMD's graphics technology for mobile applications such as gaming, navigation and user interfaces. STMicroelectronics N.V. has also licensed AMD's graphics technology for use in chipsets for handhelds.