AMD launches new tools for mobile development

Chip manufacturer AMD has announced the launch of a new suite of tools aimed at bringing mobile developers up to speed with forthcoming technologies in the space - including OpenGL compliant chips which will be appearing in handsets in 2008.

The company, which became one of the market leaders in the manufacture of media and graphics processors with the acquisition of ATI Technologies last year, sees working with the development community as vital to its attempts to turn the mobile platform into a powerful games system.

"AMD is working closely with OEMs and semiconductor suppliers to bring to market an incredibly powerful handheld gaming platform equipped with AMD's innovative, open-standard technology,"explained AMD's handheld division vice president Paul Dal Santo.

"At the same time," he continued, "we are driving the creation of truly compelling content for the next-generation mobile gaming devices that consumers demand. This industry-wide effort will help ensure a robust handheld gaming ecosystem."

AMD's forthcoming mobile handset chips will support industry-standard graphics technology such as OpenVG 1.0, OpenGL ES 2.0, and the Unified Shader Architecture - which is also found at the heart of Microsoft's Xbox 360 console.

As such, AMD plans to provide development tools based on the mature tools which it already offers to console and PC developers, including a mobile version of RenderMonkey, a shader development tool. AMD hopes that this will enable developers to create cross-platform content which includes mobile development as part of an existing production pipeline.

In addition, the firm has confirmed that it will be launching emulation environments and development kits for the upcoming hardware in the near future.