Abstract: When rendering a scene that includes a complex object made up of many individual primitives, rather than processing each primitive making up the object in turn, a bounding volume which surrounds the complex object is generated and the scene is then processed using the bounding volume in place of the actual primitives making up the complex object. If it is determined that the bounding volume representation of the object will be completely occluded in the scene (e.g. by a foreground object), then the individual primitives making up the complex object are not processed. This can save significantly on processing time and resources for the scene.

Abstract: A scene to be rendered is divided into plural individual sub-regions or tiles. The individual sub-regions 51 are also grouped into differing groups of sets of plural sub-regions. There is a top level layer comprising a set of 8×8 sub-regions which encompasses the entire scene area. There is then a group of four 4×4 sets of sub-regions, then a group of sixteen 2×2 sets of sub-regions, and finally a layer comprising the 64 single sub-regions. A primitive list building processor takes each primitive in turn, determines a location for that primitive, compares the primitive's location with the locations of the sub-regions and the locations of the sets of sub-regions, and allocates the primitive to respective primitive lists for the sub-regions and sets of sub-regions accordingly.

Abstract: A storage device 3, such as an SD card, that is coupled to a host device 2, such as a mobile phone, includes a computing environment 8. The computing environment 8 includes an application processing part 6, and a separate interface processing part 7. The application processing part 6 of the computing environment 8 is operable to execute one or more applications on the storage device 3. The interface processing part 7 of the computing environment 8 includes an interface processor that interfaces between a communications protocol used between the host device 2 and the storage device 3, and a communications protocol used by the application processor in the application processing part 6 of the storage device 3. The interface processor communicates with the application processor via interrupts and a shared memory 9.

Abstract: A storage device 3, such as an SD card, that is coupled to a host device 2, such as a mobile phone, includes a computing environment 8. The computing environment 8 comprises an application processing part 6, an interface processing part 7, and a shared memory 9, and is operable to execute one or more applications on the storage device 3, and a set of software components that together provide a server module on the storage device 3. There is a corresponding set of client software components on the host device 2 that together provide a client module on the host device 2 that can cooperate with the server module on the storage device 3 to allow an application that is being executed in the computing environment 8 of the storage device 3 to access and use input and output functions of the host device 2.

Abstract: A slave device communicates with a host system via a host communications bus. The host system includes one processor that can act as bus master and send access requests for slave resources on the slave device via the communications bus. The slave device platform includes a memory management unit, a programmable central processor and one slave resource. The memory management unit acts as an address translating device, and accepts requests with virtual addresses from a master device on the host system, translates the virtual addresses used in the access request to the “internal” physical addresses of the slave's resources and forwards the accesses to the appropriate physical resource. When an address miss occurs in the memory management unit, it passes the handling of the access request over to the controlling CPU which executes software to then resolve the address miss and handle the access request.

Abstract: A storage device 3, such as an SD card, that is coupled to a host device 2, such as a mobile phone, includes a computing environment 8. The computing environment 8 comprises an application processing part 6, an interface processing part 7, and a shared memory 9, and is operable to execute one or more applications on the storage device 3, and a set of software components that together provide a server module on the storage device 3. There is a corresponding set of client software components on the host device 2 that together provide a client module on the host device 2 that can cooperate with the server module on the storage device 3 to allow an application that is being executed in the computing environment 8 of the storage device 3 to access and use input and output functions of the host device 2.

Abstract: A storage device (3), such as an SD card, that is coupled to a host device (2), such as a mobile phone, includes a computing environment (8). The computing environment (8) includes an application processing part (6), and a separate interface processing part (7). The application processing part (6) of the computing environment 8 is operable to execute one or more applications on the storage device (3). The interface processing part (7) of the computing environment 8 includes an interface processor that interfaces between a communications protocol used between the host device (2) and the storage device (3), and a communications protocol used by the application processor in the application processing part (6) of the storage device (3). The interface processor communicates with the application processor via interrupts and a shared memory (9).

Abstract: A portable storage device (1) includes a flash memory element (5) for providing mass storage functionality to a host device via a host device interface (4), and a computing environment (8), comprising an application processor (6), a system memory (1), and wireless interface support (a wireless connection) (12). The storage device (3) also includes a display interface (13) that is able to couple the storage device (3) to a display, such as a display screen, and via which graphical outputs generated by an operating system and applications executing in the computing environment (8) on the storage device (3) can be displayed on a display.

Abstract: In a graphics processing system, when a fragment reaches a texturing stage, it is determined whether the texture to be applied is a static or dynamic texture. If it is determined that the required texels relate to a dynamic texture, then the system first tries to fetch those texels from a dynamic texture memory. If it is found that the texels are not available in the dynamic texture memory, then the relevant texels are generated in an “on-demand” fashion and stored in the dynamic texture memory so that they can be applied to the fragment.

Abstract: A storage device (3), such as an SD card, that is coupled to a host device (2), such as a mobile phone, includes a computing environment (8). The computing environment (8) includes an application processing part (6), and a separate interface processing part (7). The application processing part (6) of the computing environment 8 is operable to execute one or more applications on the storage device (3). The interface processing part (7) of the computing environment 8 includes an interface processor that interfaces between a communications protocol used between the host device (2) and the storage device (3), and a communications protocol used by the application processor in the application processing part (6) of the storage device (3). The interface processor communicates with the application processor via interrupts and a shared memory (9).

Abstract: A storage device 3, such as an SD card, that is coupled to a host device 2, such as a mobile phone, includes a computing environment 8. The computing environment 8 comprises an application processing part 6, an interface processing part 7, and a shared memory 9, and is operable to execute one or more applications on the storage device 3, and a set of software components that together provide a server module on the storage device 3. There is a corresponding set of client software components on the host device 2 that together provide a client module on the host device 2 that can cooperate with the server module on the storage device 3 to allow an application that is being executed in the computing environment 8 of the storage device 3 to access and use input and output functions of the host device 2.

Abstract: A 3D graphics rendering pipeline is used to carry out data comparisons for motion estimation in video data encoding. Video data for the pixel block of the video frame currently being encoded is loaded into the output buffers of the rendering pipeline. The video data for the comparison pixel blocks from the reference video frame is stored as texture map values in the texture cache of the rendering pipeline. Once the sets of pixel data for comparison have been stored, the rendering pipeline is controlled to render a primitive having fragment positions and texture coordinates corresponding to the data values that it is desired to compare. As each fragment is rendered, the stored and rendered fragment data is compared by fragment compare unit and the determined differences in the data values are accumulated in an error term register.

Abstract: A graphic rendering pipeline has a number of different rendering units and receives fragments for rendering. A renderer stated word cache is used to store rendering state data to be used to configure the rendering units when they render a fragment. Each rendering unit includes a functional block which carries out a rendering operation on a received fragment and a renderer state word interface that can be used to look up the required rendering state data from the renderer state word cache. Each fragment is provided to the rendering pipeline with fragment data that indicates, inter alia, a fragment index, a renderer state word index, and other fragment data that is necessary to render the fragment. When a rendering unit of the rendering pipeline receives a fragment to be rendered, it firstly uses the renderer state word index associated with the fragment to look-up, using its renderer state word interface, the relevant rendering state data from the renderer state word cache.

Abstract: A distribution medium (20) for providing an application to a host system (4) includes an interface element (21) for interfacing with the host (4), a memory or storage module (22) that stores application code representing the application and a hardware element (23). The hardware element (23) directly accesses application content stored in the memory (22), processes that application content to transform it to another form, and then provides the transformed content to the host system (4).

Abstract: A slave device (20) communicates with a host system (21) via a host communications bus (22). The host system (21) includes one (or more) processing units that can act as bus masters and send access requests for slave resources on the slave device (20) via the communications bus (22). The slave device platform (20) includes a memory management unit (23), a programmable central processing unit (24) and one or more slave resources (25). The memory management unit (23) acts as an address translating device, and accepts requests with virtual addresses from the master device or devices on the host system (21), translates the virtual addresses used in the access requests to the “internal” physical addresses of the slave's resources and forwards the accesses of the appropriate physical resources (25).

Abstract: An array of texture data elements (texels) is subdivided into a plurality of 8×4 texture element blocks, each of which 8×4 texture element blocks encodes two 4×4 texture element sub-blocks 3, 4. Each encoded texture data block includes data indicating a method to be used to generate a set of color values to be used for the texture elements that the encoded data block represents, and data indicating a method to be used for generating the colors of the individual texture elements using that generated set of colors. As well as the individual texture data blocks, a header data block encoding a base set of colors is generated. This base color set defines a set of colors that is used to generate the colors to be used when reproducing each individual encoded texture data block.

Abstract: A graphics processing platform includes a rasteriser 50 that receives primitives representing an image to be displayed for processing. The rasteriser 50 determines which sets of sampling points of the image include sampling points that are covered by a given primitive, and then generates a fragment for rendering for each set of sampling points found to include a sampling point that is covered by the primitive and passes those fragments to a renderer 51 for rendering. The renderer 51 carries out rendering operations on the fragments that it receives, and stores the rendered fragment data in tile buffers 52. The rendered fragment data is stored in multiple copies in the appropriate sample positions in the tile buffers 52, so as to provide a separate set of fragment data for each individual sample position taken of the image. The data from the tile buffers 52 is input to a downsampling unit 53, and hence output to a frame buffer 54 of a display device 55 for display.

Abstract: A 3D graphics rendering pipeline is used to carry out data comparisons for motion estimation in video data encoding. Video data for the pixel block of the video frame currently being encoded is loaded into the output buffers of the rendering pipeline. The video data for the comparison pixel blocks from the reference video frame is stored as texture map values in the texture cache of the rendering pipeline. Once the sets of pixel data for comparison have been stored, the rendering pipeline is controlled to render a primitive having fragment positions and texture coordinates corresponding to the data values that it is desired to compare. As each fragment is rendered, the stored and rendered fragment data is compared by fragment compare unit and the determined differences in the data values are accumulated in an error term register.

Abstract: An array of texture data elements (texels) is subdivided into a plurality of 8×4 texture element blocks, each of which 8×4 texture element blocks encodes two 4×4 texture element sub-blocks 3, 4. Each encoded texture data block includes data indicating a method to be used to generate a set of colour values to be used for the texture elements that the encoded data block represents, and data indicating a method to be used for generating the colours of the individual texture elements using that generated set of colours. As well as the individual texture data blocks, a header data block encoding a base set of colours is generated. This base colour set defines a set of colours that is used to generate the colours to be used when reproducing each individual encoded texture data block.

Abstract: A 3D graphics rendering pipeline is used to carry out data comparisons for motion estimation in video data encoding. Video data for the pixel block of the video frame currently being encoded is loaded into the output buffers of the rendering pipeline. The video data for the comparison pixel blocks from the reference video frame is stored as texture map values in the texture cache of the rendering pipeline. Once the sets of pixel data for comparison have been stored, the rendering pipeline is controlled to render a primitive having fragment positions and texture coordinates corresponding to the data values that it is desired to compare. As each fragment is rendered, the stored and rendered fragment data is compared by fragment compare unit and the determined differences in the data values are accumulated in an error term register.