Multimedia processor lowers cost of video-enabled portable devices

Gina Roos

eeProductCenter (03/19/2007 2:05 PM ET)

San Jose, Calif. — CEVA, Inc. has unveiled a new family of application-optimized multimedia solutions for the development of high-volume, low-cost mobile consumer electronics with advanced multimedia capabilities. Building on CEVA's Mobile-Media architecture, the first offering in the Mobile-Media-Lite family is the MM2200, a highly integrated, single processor in a reduced die size for applications such as mobileTV players, entry-level portable media players (PMPs) and multimedia phones.

The Mobile-Media-Lite solutions are fully programmable platforms that feature a high-performance CEVA-X1620 DSP core, a small set of level-1 associated memories, a multimedia-optimized DSP subsystem, a complete suite of optimized multimedia codecs and a multimedia applications layer. Using a fully programmable DSP enables support for all future multimedia standards without the need for hardware upgrades, and a development platform enables licensees to incorporate additional hardware and software components, said the company.

Offering a complete drop-in replacement for multimedia ICs, the MM2200 leverages the CEVA-X1620 processor, and handles all multimedia-related processing as well as application and system tasks. This eliminates the need for any additional processors, related memories and peripherals in the system, which significantly reduces the silicon size and bill of materials for the development of multimedia SoCs, said CEVA.

Targeting the mobileTV player market, the MM2200 supports H.264 decode at CIF resolution 30 frames per second (fps) while simultaneously decoding an AAC stream and synchronizing the audio and video. The MM2200 also supports MPEG4 decode up to VGA resolution 30 fps, making it a good fit for entry-level PMPs and MP4 players.

CEVA also plans to introduce the MM2100, a second member in the Mobile-Media-Lite family, in the near future. Specifically designed for heterogeneous architectures that already include a CPU, the MM2100 uses CEVA's multimedia technology as a dedicated multimedia co-processor, supporting H.264 decoding up to SD resolution in addition to a complete set of audio and imaging codecs. The MM2100 architecture uses any available CPU processing power for control oriented tasks, part of the video codec processing or the application layer.

Product information: www.ceva-dsp.com/mobile-media

CEVA, 1-408-514-2900, www.ceva-dsp.com