The Powervr FRC270 frame-rate conversion IP core from Imagination Technologies for licensing to lead customers made its debut at CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The core is the only licensable high-quality and small-footprint IP available for motion-compensated, 240-Hz frame-rate conversion, according to the company.
When combined with customer IP or with Imagination’s Powervr VXD, VXE, and I2P cores, the FRC270 allows system-on-a-chip (SoC) designers to implement a complete solution on one device, replacing separate chips for FRC, video decoding, and interlacing. The core can convert both SD and HD material up to frame rates of 240 Hz, generating 1080p 240 fps material that can be displayed on the newest panels. The IP converts a sequence of pictures from one frame to a higher frame rate by inserting extra frames using full-motion-compensated interpolation.
The core operates with minimal host CPU load and intervention. It uses one memory interface for source and destination frames, which is efficient for the latest DDR3 memory, as well as older generations of DDR. The algorithms used in the FRC270 automatically adjust to the input format, in order to optimize the algorithm for SD and HD source material. A sophisticated edge-detection algorithm is also used, to refine the output and minimize the “halo effects” that plague traditional solutions.
Imagination Technologies
www.imgtec.com