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Valkyrie-AR IC
The Valkyrie-AR IC is a custom IC containing the logic for the video display. It includes the following functions:
- display memory controller
- video CLUT (color lookup table)
- video DAC (digital-to-analog converter)
A separate data bus handles data transfers between the Valkyrie-AR IC and the display memory. The display memory data bus is 32 bits wide, and all data transfers consist of 32 bits at a time. The Valkyrie-AR IC breaks each 32-bit data transfer into several pixels of the appropriate size for the current display mode—4, 8, or 16 bits per pixel. The Valkyrie-AR IC does not support 24 bits per pixel.
To keep up with the large amount of data that must be transferred into and out of the display memory, the Valkyrie-AR IC has several internal buffers. Besides input and output buffers for display data, the Valkyrie-AR IC also has a buffer for both addresses and data being sent from the main processor to the display. That buffer can hold up to four transactions, allowing the main processor to complete a write instruction to the display memory and continue processing without waiting for some other transaction that might be taking place on the display memory bus.
The CLUT in the Valkyrie-AR custom IC provides color palettes for 4-bit and 8-bit display modes.In 16-bit display mode, the CLUT is used to provide gamma correction for the stored color values. With a black-and-white or monochrome display mode, all three color components (R, G, and B) are the same.
The Valkyrie-AR IC uses several clocks. Its transactions with the CPU are synchronized to the system bus clock. Data transfers from the frame-buffer DRAM are clocked by the MEM_CLK signal, which runs at 60 MHz. Data transfers to the CLUT and the video output are clocked by the dot clock, which has a different rate for different display monitors.