Hollywood (graphics chip)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Hollywood is the name of the
graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...
(GPU) used in
Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
's
Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...
video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally placed i ...
. It was designed by
ATI Ati or ATI may refer to: * Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines **Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group ** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines *Ati language (China), a ...
(now
AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
), and is manufactured using the same
90 nm The 90  nm process refers to the level of MOSFET (CMOS) fabrication process technology that was commercialized by the 2003–2005 timeframe, by leading semiconductor companies like Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, IBM, Intel, Fujitsu, TSMC, Elpid ...
or 65 nm (depending on the hardware revision) CMOS process as ''
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
'', the Wii's
central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...
. Very few official details about Hollywood were released to the public by Nintendo, ATI, or any other company involved in the Wii's development. The Hollywood GPU is reportedly based on the
GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the Wii ...
's ''Flipper'' GPU and is clocked 50% higher at 243 MHz, though these
clock rate In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the pr ...
s have never been officially confirmed. Hollywood is a
multi-chip module A multi-chip module (MCM) is generically an electronic assembly (such as a package with a number of conductor terminals or "pins") where multiple integrated circuits (ICs or "chips"), semiconductor dies and/or other discrete components are int ...
(MCM) package containing three dies under the cover in the Hollywood-A revision. The first of these three dies, codenamed ''Napa'', controls the I/O functions,
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
access, the Audio
DSP DSP may refer to: Computing * Digital signal processing, the mathematical manipulation of an information signal * Digital signal processor, a microprocessor designed for digital signal processing * Yamaha DSP-1, a proprietary digital signal ...
, and the actual GPU with its embedded
DRAM Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxid ...
, and measures 8 × 9 mm. The other, codenamed ''Vegas'', holds 24 MB of "internal"
1T-SRAM 1T-SRAM is a pseudo-static random-access memory (PSRAM) technology introduced by MoSys, Inc. in September 1998, which offers a high-density alternative to traditional static random-access memory (SRAM) in embedded memory applications. Mosys use ...
and measures 13.5 × 7 mm. A third, tiny die contains EEPROM. The Hollywood-1 revision was fabricated on a 65 nm node and merges Napa and Vegas into a single die, resulting in a two-die MCM.


Hardware capabilities

* 243 MHz graphics chip * 3MB embedded GPU memory (eDRAM) ** 2MB dedicated to Z-buffer and framebuffer ** 1MB texture cache * 24MB 1T-SRAM @ 486 MHz (3.9GB/s) directly accessible for textures and other video data * Fixed function pipeline (no support for programmable vertex or pixel shaders in hardware) * Texture Environment Unit (TEV) - capable of combining up to 8 textures in up to 16 stages or "passes" * ~30GB/s internal bandwidth^ * ~18 million polygons/second^ * 972Mpixels/sec peak pixel fillrate Note: ^ denotes speculation: using confirmed AMD GameCube data x 1.5, a crude but likely accurate way of calculating the Wii's results based on clock speeds and identical architecture.


Texture Environment Unit

The Texture Environment Unit (TEV) is a unique piece of hardware exclusive to the GameCube and Wii. The Wii inherited the TEV from Flipper, and the TEV is—to use an analogy from
Factor 5 Factor 5 GmbH is an Independent business, independent software and video game developer. The company was co-founded by five former Rainbow Arts employees in 1987 in Cologne, Germany, which served as the inspiration behind the studio's name. In ...
director
Julian Eggebrecht Julian Eggebrecht is a German video game businessman. He is notable for having been one of the founding members and creative director of Factor 5, a German-American game development company. Career Eggebrecht co-founded Factor 5 in Germany in 198 ...
—"like an elaborate switchboard that makes the wildest combinations of textures and materials possible." The TEV pipeline combines up to 8 textures in up to 16 stages at once. Each stage can apply a multitude of functions to the texture. This was frequently used to simulate pixel shader effects such as bump-mapping, or to perform effects such as cel shading. On the GameCube, Factor 5's '' Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II'' used the TEV for the targeting computer effect and the simulated volumetric fog. In another scenario, '' Wave Race: Blue Storm'' used the TEV notably for water distortion (such as refraction) and other water effects. The Wii's TEV unit and TEV capabilities are no different from the GameCube's, excluding indirect performance advantages from the faster clock speeds.


Starlet

Hollywood contains an
ARM926EJ-S ARM9 is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM Holdings for microcontroller use. The ARM9 core family consists of ARM9TDMI, ARM940T, ARM9E-S, ARM966E-S, ARM920T, ARM922T, ARM946E-S, ARM9EJ-S, ARM926EJ-S, ARM968E-S, ARM996H ...
core, which has been unofficially nicknamed ''Starlet''. This embedded microprocessor runs an undocumented operating system called
IOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and performs many of the Wii's I/O functions, including controlling the wireless functionality,
USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...
, the
SD card Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...
interface, the optical disc drive, the internal NAND flash storage, WiiConnect24 when the console is in standby mode, and other miscellaneous functions. The Starlet acts as the security controller of the console, performing various cryptography functions; Starlet is designed to remain secure even if the Broadway is compromised. Hollywood includes hardware implementations of AES and
SHA-1 In cryptography, SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a cryptographically broken but still widely used hash function which takes an input and produces a 160-bit (20-byte) hash value known as a message digest – typically rendered as 40 hexadecima ...
to speed up Starlet's security functionality. Communication between the Starlet and the Broadway is accomplished via an IPC mechanism. Starlet has complete control over Broadway; the former can reboot the latter and supply it with code to execute at any time.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hollywood (Graphics Chip) Graphics processing units Nintendo chips ATI Technologies products Wii hardware