Programmable Graphics Chips

Frank Crow
nVidia

Time and Place

1305 Newell-Simon Hall
Refreshments 3:15 pm
Talk 3:30 pm

Abstract

Programmability is coming to graphics chips in a big way. Historically, the hardware has been inflexible. If it did what you wanted, great. Otherwise, you learned to either live with it or go slowly. The current generation of hardware is changing that, opening many possibilities for extending visual effects beyond what the hardware designers envisioned. We'll try to put all this in the context of the fairly brief history of graphics hardware. We'll take a look at the motivation for moving in this direction. We'll look at some examples of what is being done with programmable chips. We'll look at just what is programmable. Finally we'll discuss what the implications of all this might be.

Speaker Biography

Frank Crow, currently a 3D Chip Architect with nVidia, has had a long research and academic career in computer graphics. He taught at the University of Texas and Ohio State. He conducted research and managed others doing so at Xerox PARC, Apple ATG, and Interval Research. After many years pursuing the improbable and impractical, he is enjoying the notion that fruits of his labors will be obeying the twitching fingers of millions.

Speaker Appointments

For appointments, please contact Jianbo Shi (jshi@cs.cmu.edu).