Notebooks get Trident 3D chip

Trident Microsystems (TRID), which makes multimedia chips for the mobile computing market, today announced a 3D graphics controller for notebook computers.

Trident says this is the first time that true desktop 3D performance will be available for notebooks. Intel's MMX technology complements the Trident chip's capabilities, according to Trident. MMX is Intel's technology for speeding up multimedia applications such as graphics, video, and communications.

Trident's Cyber9397 is a 64-bit, 3D chip for MMX-enabled Pentium notebook systems and is based on Intel's high-performance PCI architecture. The Trident chip couples 2D and 3D graphics acceleration with Trident's ClearTV output display technology.

Cyber9397 allows videoconferencing in two separate windows and Trident's TrueVideo motion video capture.

Cyber9397 will be priced at $45 in quantities of 10,000. It is available in sampling quantities now; production volumes are set to arrive in the second quarter.