Geometry Engine

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Geometry Engine integrated circuit SGI GE25A Geometry Engine die.jpg
Geometry Engine integrated circuit

The Geometry Engine is an early very large scale integrated circuit (VLSI) vector processor designed for 3D computer graphics by Jim Clark and Marc Hannah at Stanford University under ARPA contract. [1]

Contents

This ASIC chip was first demonstrated in 1981. [2] This processor is the forerunner of modern tensor processors marketed for graphics and artificial intelligence (AI). The Geometry Engine was adopted commercially in Silicon Graphics computer workstations for many years. [3] Silicon Graphics's first product, shipped in November 1983, was the IRIS 1000, a terminal with hardware-accelerated 3D graphics based on the Geometry Engine. [4] It was capable of approximately 6 million operations per second. [1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Clark, James H. (July 1982). "The Geometry Engine: A VLSI Geometry System for Graphics" (PDF). Computer Graphics . 16 (3): 127–133.
  2. ↑ Peddie, Jon (September 24, 2020). "Famous Graphics Chips: Geometry Engine". Chasing Pixels. IEEE Computer Society . Retrieved February 27, 2026.
  3. ↑ Peddie, Jon (February 5, 2021). "Geometry Engine: The Legendary Chip That Launched SGI". Graphics Chip Chronicles. Vol. 5, no. 4. Electronic Design . Retrieved February 27, 2026.
  4. ↑ Peddie, Jon (2022). The History of the GPU – Steps to Invention (1st ed.). Springer. p. 424. ISBN   978-3031109676.
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