Masaki Hamada

Multithread shader for 3D and vector graphics

We present a new multithread shader, which is used for 3D graphics and vector graphics, targeted for mobile devices. Multithread shader executes various pixel operations and the system can be implemented with a little chip area and a small amount of memory. Recently mobile devices, such as phones and PDAs, are required of the capability of graphical user interface like a PC. For example many vector graphics format such as SVG, Flash®, PDF®, outline fonts become more popular as well as 3D graphics [Kameyama][Akenine-Möller]. These are used for web browsing, games, portable mapping, and GPS. Generally vector graphics needs a lot of CPU power and a large memory. But mobile devices are very limited available CPU power and memory size. So vector graphics hardware accelerator is essential for mobile devices. We describe unified multithread shader for both 3D graphics and vector graphics.