Imagination Technologies' Vigo Mobile TV IP Platform

Single Baseband Solution Supporting Multiple Mobile TV Standards

September 9, 2005 -- Imagination Technologies, a leader in system-on-chip intellectual property (SoC IP), announces the immediate availability of the Vigo IP platform supporting multiple Mobile TV standards.

Vigo is a licensable demodulation platform for Mobile TV with multi-standard support for DVB-H, T-DMB, and DAB. With low system power requirements Vigo provides the foundation of a highly-integrated mobile TV solution, reducing cost, design risk and time-to-market.

Built around the UCC Mobile (Universal Communications Coprocessor) signal processor, which provides PHY layer demodulation, the Vigo platform also integrates hardware to support the DVB-H Link Layer and an MTX™ embedded controller for system housekeeping.

Says David McBrien, VP business development, Imagination Technologies: “We’ve already proven the capabilities of our market-leading technologies for digital radio and television and are now offering solutions for Mobile TV standards. Combining DVB-H and T-DMB in a single platform is the logical step, allowing manufacturers to target a world market and end users to roam internationally. We expect high-quality mobile video to become as much a part of daily life as mobile audio and communications are today.”

Inside Vigo

The Vigo Mobile TV IP platform provides a complete demodulation solution, from digitized IF or I/Q input, through demodulation and error-correction, to provide multiple DMA IP datagram output streams for DVB-H, and MPEG-2 transport stream for T-DMB. The pre-integrated MTX MiniEngine controller isolates any low latency processor requirements for managing the Vigo Mobile TV IP platform from the main system applications processor, minimising software porting and system integration efforts. Code memory footprint is optimised via MTX's 16-bit instruction set.

A DMA controller allows support for IP datagram output over any required system-level interface. The DVB-H Link Layer implementation includes dedicated MPE-FEC frame assembly, error correction, and timer hardware. It supports parallel reception of multiple Multi Protocol Encapsulated (MPE) IP datagram streams.

Extensive use is made of clock-gating, at both the individual module and system level, to take full power-saving advantage of the time-sliced nature of the DVB-H transmission system.

Target applications for Vigo include Cell phones, PDAs, PMPs, Mobile TV receivers, ultra-lightweight laptops, tablet PCs and handheld games consoles.

The UCC Mobile DVB-H PHY software features an advanced equaliser for high Doppler performance, and fast re-acquisition algorithms that minimise wake-up time – key for ensuring good mobile reception performance and for minimising power consumption where short time-slices are used.

The Vigo Mobile TV IP platform includes reference software drivers for the MTX controller together with PHY software for the UCC. The reference software provides an abstract application programming interface to the Vigo Mobile TV IP platform enabling PSI extraction, cell handover and multiplex selection, time slicing, service delivery, easy integration with protocol stacks.

The Vigo Mobile TV IP platform is delivered as a complete package including fully synthesizable VHDL, synthesis scripts, test harnesses, software drivers, and documentation.

For more information on the Vigo Mobile TV IP platform and complementary IP from Imagination Technologies, including a range of PowerVR video cores, visit: www.imgtec.com.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc - a leader in SoC IP - develops, licenses and supplies market-leading graphics, video and display cores, real-time multi-threaded DSP/RISC processors and communication and broadcast technologies for the mobile, consumer, automotive and PC markets. It supplies licensable IP (Intellectual Property) supported by advanced development tools to leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies worldwide. Imagination Technologies Group plc has its corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom and is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (FTSE:IMG). See: www.imgtec.com.