MULTI-STANDARD GRAPHICS/VIDEO PMC FOR COTS SYSTEMS
DELIVERS HIGH-PERFORMANCE GRAPHICS IN HARSH ENVIRONMENTS

Chatsworth, CA, July 2005 – Aitech Defense Systems, Inc., a world leader in the
development and manufacture of board and subsystem level products for harsh
environment defense, aerospace and space applications, has announced the availability
of its most versatile graphics/video processing PMC for moderate to high-level
applications. The new M585 Multi-Standard Graphics/Video PMC is a COTS mezzanine
card that provides superior 2D and 3D graphics processing, and includes extensive
encoding and decoding capabilities to accommodate multiple channels of video input. In
addition, the new M585 provides a variety of industry-standard high-resolution signal
outputs, and is available in three levels of ruggedization for commercial, rugged, or
military applications.

Based on the advanced 3Dlabs Permedia3 graphics processor and supported by a
32 MB SDRAM frame buffer, the M585 uses multi-functional memory architecture to
perform high quality 3D polygon and texture acceleration, and to unify 2D graphics and
graphics and video operations all in the same execution pipeline. This allows flexibility in the way data is handled, and prevents overloading a specific type of data buffer. The
unit's double-buffered architecture features one buffer for display and another for data
update.
This versatile card accepts video signals from up to nine NTSC/PAL composite video
inputs or up to three S-video digital inputs. Selected input may be incorporated into the
graphic units and used for overlay functionality, such as combining a target or
measurement grid with a live video image. These video inputs are controlled by a video
decoder converting the analog video into a digital video stream – and in a unique
method – are transferred to the Permedia3 graphics processor through its high speed
video side port reducing excessive main PCI bus interface traffic. The 24-bit stream
video side port is also capable of interfacing with video peripherals such as encoders,
decoders, and flat-panel controllers.

Outputs include standard analog RGB, non-interlaced RGBHV, and RGsB (sync-ongreen)
interfaces supporting screen resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 (UXGA). The M585
also supports NTSC or PAL video output – both in composite and S-video signal
formats – and is capable of driving flat panel displays ranging from VGA to UXGA
resolutions in a single link DVI compliant interface. External synchronization is achieved
through a variety of TTL or RS-422 video sync I/Os.

The default supported video signal levels include RS-170, NTSC, and PAL. Cards can
also be provided with a customized video level format by using video amplifiers
achieved through resistor configuration to support a wide variety of video displays,
including MFDs. Cards can be designated to support either a 4:3 or 1:1 aspect ratio.
The M585 mezzanine card connects to the PCI bus and incorporates a PCI core fully
compliant with the PCI Rev 2.1 Specification. The PCI interface supports 32-bit PCI bus
at 66 MHz. All M585 I/O signals are routed to the PMC P4 I/O connector.

The Aitech M585 graphics/video card is available in two mechanical formats. An aircooled
version (per IEEE 1386-2001) is available for installation on top of commercial
and rugged air-cooled carrier boards. A conduction-cooled version (per ANSI/VITA20-
2001) is available for installation on top of IEEE 1101.2 conduction-cooled carrier
boards. High-power components in each format are cooled by an aluminum heatsink.
An extensive software package supports onboard capabilities, including X11, OpenGL,
standard and enhanced VGA, frame grab and input video (Genlock) overlay. A
complete, full featured OpenGL software development and deployment suite is available
from Seaweed Systems and a sub-set OpenGL-lite package is available directly from
Aitech. SBC drivers and BSP software are available for WindRiver Systems, Inc.
VxWorks.