Santa Clara, USA, October 4th 2005: A wide range of mobile video cores from Imagination Technologies, a leader in system-on-chip intellectual property (SoC IP), will be showcased to visitors at ARM Developers' Conference, 4-6 Oct, Santa Clara Conference Center (Stand 608). This IP enables mobile video that matches DVD for quality while requiring low-power consumption for long battery life on mobile video players.
At the heart of Imagination Technologies’ mobile video solutions are the MVDA multi-standard video decode accelerator family and MVED multi-standard video encode/decode accelerator family. PowerVR video acceleration cores will be seen in both reference systems and end products including the Dell Axim X50v.
Says David McBrien, VP business development, Imagination Technologies: “With multi-standard encode and decode and support of bit rates up to 10 Mbit per second and programmable resolutions up to 720 x 576, Imagination Technologies’ mobile video IP enables unsurpassed picture quality. Add to that advanced power management features for very low power consumption, and reductions in CPU load typically between 80-90%, and our IP is the ideal choice for mobile multimedia and TV devices.
Inside Imagination Technologies’ Mobile Video IP
The PowerVR MVED multi-standard video codec (encode/decode) accelerator and MVDA multi-standard video decode accelerator families enable advanced video graphics performance with low power consumption in a range of applications such as PMP and mobile TV.
The PowerVR MVDA and MVED IP cores accelerate all key video standards across a range of applications including mobile TV and handheld multimedia including: MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV8, WMV9, H.263 and H.264 video streams, at resolutions programmable up to 720 x 576, offloading the most costly stages in video processing from the CPU.
The cores offload a range of CPU-intensive functions such as transform and quantisation, motion estimation and compensation, intra prediction and deblocking filtering from the host software, inverse transform, inverse quantisation and inverse zig-zag for H.264 decode, inverse Discrete Cosine Transform (iDCT), Motion Compensation and deblocking. The cores’ hardware also supports both JPEG and M-JPEG.
The reduction in CPU load achieved with MVED1 can reach over 90%, depending on the video-coding standard in use, thereby allowing the system designer to target lower cost and lower power systems.
Deblocking can be performed either by directly accessing the macroblocks from the decoder hardware or by fetching them from system memory which allows it to be used for general video post-processing.
MVED1 builds on the advanced decode features of the PowerVR MVDA2 core with powerful encode acceleration including programmability for standards future-proofing. The architecture allows either encode or decode functions to be used, or both simultaneously (for example in videophones). An internal buffer minimises accesses to external memory by the encode functions, to reduce power and memory system overhead.
PowerVR MVDA and MVED family cores are available as soft IP and ship with: synthesis scripts; an extensive verification test suite to ensure correct implementation of the design in a SoC; a hardware implementation guide; and a comprehensive programmer's reference manual. For full specifications, visit www.powervr.com.
Complete SoC platforms for PMP devices
Imagination Technologies offers a full PMP / mobile multimedia platform which includes a complete range of IP for implementing a PMP, including hardware and software IP with the key attributes of being integrated, optimised and pre-verified – allowing developers to focus on their proprietary value-add for the purposes of differentiation. This approach reduces development risk and time-to-market, and the customisable nature of the platform allows it to form the basis of multiple SoC devices targeted at various price/performance points.
Crucially Imagination Technologies’ PMP platform can also support multiple digital radio and mobile TV standards, facilitating both the development of ‘World PMPs’.
This platform includes: the META™ RISC/DSP Processor, which uses super-threading to get ‘more from one core’ at a low clock speed, conserving power, and also enables powerful DSP for audio codecs and effects; UCC mobile, a Software Defined Radio platform designed for use in high performance multi-standard mobile data receivers, where battery life is key; and a wide range of PowerVR Display IP including the PowerVR TVE digital TV encoder, the PowerVR PDP pixel display pipeline family and the PowerVR IEP Image Enhancement Processor.
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.
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