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Programmable Media Processors Deliver Flexible Solution
Resource-rich multimedia engines handle MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and other video-processing tasks for entertainment and handheld systems.
Date Posted: May 12, 2003 12:00 AM
MPEG-4 APPLICATIONS NOW HAVE OPTIONS
The Emblaze chip supports MPEG-4, H.263, JPG, MP3, AAC, and GSM-AMR compression algorithms. On-chip hardware macros enhance and accelerate the critical computations needed to handle the video and audio processing requirements. The company also offers the ER4520, an A/V codec for streaming, messaging, and conferencing applications. The chip delivers MPEG-4 with QCIF resolution. Actually a superset of the ER4520, the ER4521 adds an LCD controller and VGA capture capabilities. The end of the second quarter should mark the arrival of the ER4525, an application processor that includes even better graphics capabilities, a four-channel DMA controller, an SDRAM interface, and three universal serial ports.
Working on a second-generation MPEG-4 decoder/encoder, Toshiba designers just unveiled the enhanced device. It consumes a mere 160 mW when active and only 80 nA on standby. The chip packs four 16-bit RISC processors, 16 Mbits of embedded DRAM, and a 5-Goperation/s adaptive filter engine.
Unveiled late last year, the MiMagic 3 streaming media processor from NeoMagic aims at PDAs and other low-power portable systems. The chip combines an ARM 720T RISC processor core with 8 kbytes of cache that operates at up to 110 MHz. The applications processor achieves its high performance and low power through architectural innovations, including two independent memory buses: a static bus for flash memory and a separate synchronous bus for DRAM system memory. These two memory buses provide separate interfaces for simultaneous access to program and data storage, avoiding bus-contention issues. When powered by a 1.8-V supply, the chip consumes about 100 mW. On standby, the power can drop to 0.6 mW.
The abundant choices for handling multimedia video and mixed audio/video applications let designers select devices that best fit their application. Plus, with the availability of many media-processing functions as blocks of intellectual property, designers can also "roll their own" media processor if the features of off-the-shelf devices don't meet their needs.