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Industryýs First HDTV Decoder Chips With MPEG-4 Launched by Sigma Designs

New decoder family with unique features for next generation digital TV already adopted by e-BOX, National Semiconductor and Toshiba

The manufacturer says . . .

ChipCenter's Paul O'Shea says . . .

Sigma Designs, Inc. a manufacturer of IP video streaming solutions, announced today the industryýs first family of integrated high-definition television (HDTV) decoder chips to support MPEG-4, marking the companyýs formal entry into the digital TV and media gateway markets. Sigmaýs new EM8605 and EM8610 decoder chips offer a high performance architecture that supports digital TV, DVD, video-on-demand (VOD) and personal video recording (PVR) applications. Sigma Designs will showcase its EM8605 in their demonstration suite at this weekýs CES show in Las Vegas. High definition television and advanced CODEC technologies are expected to top consumer electronics trends for the next several years. Driven in the U.S. market by an FCC mandate and a major cable industry proposal, digital televisions offering both ATSC and cable compatible interfaces are expected to appear on retail shelves near the end of this year. In turn, high definition video, which occupies four to six times the bandwidth of standard video, is driving subscription video service providers to use more efficient CODEC technologies to maintain a full complement of channels. MPEG-4 provides this alternative and has been adopted by the e-BOX company, a joint venture led by Pioneer and Sharp with plans to execute field trials at Comcast during the first half of this year. Today, the majority of new MPEG-4 consumer appliances are based on chipsets offered by Sigma Designs. ýMPEG-4 is a technology that is being deployed today to generate new revenues from bandwidth-limited applications that cannot be supported by MPEG-2,ý said Ken Lowe, vice president of strategic marketing at Sigma Designs. ýAs a leader in advanced CODEC technologies, Sigma introduced the first set-top decoder solution for MPEG-4 a year ago, which has been designed into new consumer appliances by over 20 independent companies.ý Designing Media Gateways and Advanced Set-top Boxes Using the EM8605 Sigmaýs new EM8605 was designed as a full function PCI-based media processor, operating in conjunction with a high performance embedded CPU to match the requirements of a next generation media gateway or advanced set-top box. The EM8605 features high definition decoding, multi-stream video decoding in MPEG-4, MPEG-2, or MPEG-1 formats, multi-stream audio decoding, 2D graphics acceleration, transport stream handling with CSS (DVD) decryption, and advanced display processing. Advanced set-top boxes supporting HDTV and MPEG-4 along with a flexible set of interactive applications will ideally benefit from the EM8605ýs rich feature set. Media gateways represent the next level for home entertainment, providing a scalable solution for processing multiple media types, external broadband communications and internal home connectivity. Typical functions include digital TV reception, broadband Internet access, DVD playback, personal video recording, video-on-demand and home networking. As most households have more than one TV, this architecture can offer a more economical overall solution by adding simple, low-cost video endpoints to service additional televisions. The EM8605 uniquely provides the complete range of hardware and software features required to support all of the media processing needs required in a media gateway. Designing Multi-function Consumer Appliances Using the EM8610 Manufacturers of DVD players, television sets and other consumer equipment are steadily moving toward multi-function devices that offer a wider range of digital media based features. With the proliferation of new standards, file formats and downloaded media from the Internet, users are now demanding more universal media support for video, audio and photographic images. This includes playback of MPEG-4 based movies offered by companies such as DivX Video (tm), listening to music downloaded as MP3 or Windows Media Audio (WMA) and viewing JPEG-based digital photographs in high resolution. Following this trend, advanced DVD players are adding network connectivity, local hard disk storage with PVR functionality and in some cases digital TV reception. Sigmaýs new EM8610 was designed as a stand-alone system-on-chip solution for multi-function consumer appliances and digital televisions. The EM8610 offers an on-chip RISC processor, PCI-bus hosting, and IDE controller along with the same media processing functions as the EM8605 to enable highly efficient designs for systems supporting the widest range of digital video/audio features. Configured with standard tuners and front-end components, the EM8610 provides a full-featured solution for next generation digital televisions, with unique display processing features for both flat panel and direct view displays. The EM86xx family of media processors offers unparalleled quality of video and audio processing. Video decoding capabilities include MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 compressed video formats while audio decoding includes Dolbyý Digital (AC3), AAC, Windows Media Audio (WMA) and MPEG-1 Layers I, II and III (MP3) and MPEG-2 BC Layers I and II. MPEG-4 video support is based on the advanced simple profile at full DVD resolution. Any form of decoded content can be output in either progressive or interlaced format. Also supported is Picture CD (JPEG) format for viewing digital photo content, which provides a substantially enhanced image when utilizing the high definition output. For supporting a robust graphical user interface and interactive applications, the EM86xx family offers a full 2D graphics accelerator capable of bit-blt operations at 75 megapixels per second, separate on-screen-display, and selectable flicker filtering. Beyond the decoding and rendering process, the EM86xx family of media processors also provides the most advanced display processing features available, which recreate many elements of cinema picture quality. The family of parts is based on a unique architectural approach to mixing multiple video and graphics sources together with arbitrary scaling and conversion while also supporting multiple television outputs. Two separate video sources plus accelerated graphics, OSD, and hardware cursor elements are scan converted, scaled, and mixed together in real time to support complex screen composition. Dual video and audio stream processing along with two independent television outputs enable the use of multiple TVs, or a TV and video recorder combination. Additionally, the chip offers composite and S-video TV outputs, interlaced or progressive analog component video outputs (YPbPr or RGB). e-BOX corporation, formed in March 2002 to develop the next generation system for advanced cable services based on MPEG-4, is developing a set-top box based on the Sigma EM8605. The e-BOX solution supports HDTV, VOD with the look-and-feel of DVD and PVR, all in one low cost set-top box. National Semiconductor has been in partnership with Sigma Designs for several years, having jointly established more than 40 set-top box customers designs based on their Geodeý embedded x86 technology. National is now in the process of developing new products for the high definition digital set-top box market, based on Sigmaýs EM8605 HDTV decoder and other advanced technologies from National. Together, National and Sigma anticipate introducing a new set-top box reference design to the marketplace during the second quarter of this year. ýNational will continue working closely with Sigma to develop advanced set-top box solutions for digital TV, video-on-demand, and media-centric applications,ý said Mike Polacek, vice president of the Information Appliance Division, National Semiconductor Corporation. ýThe new reference platform will provide our customers with a compelling solution for the development of HDTV applications.ý Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) has been working with Sigma Designs on the development of a series of new home entertainment gateway reference designs, based on their TMPR7901A 64-bit super-scaler MIPS instruction processor. The first reference design, using Sigmaýs EM8475 MPEG-4 decoder chip, was successfully demonstrated by Toshiba at Japanýs CREATEC show in October. Toshiba intends to introduce a higher performance platform based on Sigmaýs EM8605 HDTV decoder during the first half of this year. ýAs part of Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC) overall development of configurable, leading-edge reference platforms for Residential Gateways, set-top boxes and other applications, we are very pleased to announce the new collaboration between TAEC and Sigma Designs. This will enable us to develop platforms based on the high-performance, highly integrated Toshiba/ArTile TX7901/A MIPS-based RISC processor and Sigma Designsý advance EM8605 high-definition decoder. This development complements our existing platform, which is based on the Toshiba/ArTile TX4927/TX7901 MIPS-based RISC processors and the Sigma Designs' EM8475 MPEG-4 decoder,ý said Farhad Mafie, vice president of the ASSP Business Unit at Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. Sigma Designs specializes in silicon-based MPEG decoding for streaming video, progressive DVD playback and advanced digital set-top boxes. The companyýs award-winning REALmagicý Video Streaming Technology is used in both commercial and consumer applications providing highly integrated solutions for high-quality decoding of MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. Headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., the company also has sales offices in China, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Sigma Designs Web Site

The EM8605 and EM8610 chips are HDTV-capable chips that are comparable to what other companies are offering in the industry, with the exception that they support MPEG2 and MPEG4. The chips are follow-ons to the EM8470 (/analog/products_700-799/prod752.htm) that was reviewed a little more than a year ago. The EM8605 and EM8610 can support multiple streams, decoding MPEG2 or MPEG4 and can support high definition video output. The real angle that Sigma Design has is that the products apply to digital STBs and TVs. While there isnýt much content yet that is supported for MPEG4, there are product trials and a lot of speculation looking at it. Some companies are incorporating the MPEG4 with existing MPEG2 decoder products as a hedge against a design that could be obsolete if content is supported in MPEG4. The MPEG4 standard supports downloading Internet Protocol video content, the use of DivX video content and of course better compression than MPEG2. Comcast, the cable provider, will be going to trial in the first half of this year with an MPEG4-based system for cable and if they decide itýs important then STB manufacturers want to be ready. For example, up to 24 MPEG-4 SDTV programs (instead of 8-12 MPEG-2 SDTV programs) may be transmitted using a single 6-MHz 256-QAM digital cable channel. In this case, the MPEG-4 video quality meets or exceeds that of MPEG-2. Sigma Designs believes that MPEG4 has continued to penetrate and it has gained acceptance in the IP world and Sigma has 3 or 4 DVD players based on MPEG4, supporting DivX video. DivX is the name given to a video codec and is based on the MPEG-4 compression format. DivX videos are usually only about 15 percent of the size of a standard DVD file. Typically, they only take half the time to encode and are smaller in size than MPEG-1, this due to the compression technology. The EM8605 and EM8610 chips are not for mid-range DVD players but for multi-function DVD players with PVR, a network connection. It is really a convergence device. The EM8605 is designed to work with a separate CPU and for an advanced STB or gateway, where you need the horsepower of a CPU outside the chip because there are too many functions for the EM8605. Full video-on-demand streaming and Digital video STB type functions require a more robust CPU like the EM8605. The EM8610 is the same basic chip as the EM8605, except that Sigma put it into a configuration where they created a complete application environment that can run with the on-board RISC processor. For example, thereýs an IDE port and PCI hosting capability. Itýs also ideal for multifunction consumer devices that donýt need horsepower but need flexibility. They need the capability to playback a DVD, PVR, and control a network. The EM8605 and EM6810 incorporate 12-bit 54 MHz video DACs for the composite and S-video outputs. For the YPbPr/RGB video outputs, 12-bit video DACs are also used, clocking up to 148.5 MHz. What that means is the video quality is improved over previous versions and the number of external components used for filtering is reduced, which of course lowers cost. The EM8610 is designed to go into the new digital generation DVD player that supports playback, has a hard disk, supports PVR and will have a network connection - so through this device you can run all the media that you will play on your TV. You download it from the Internet and connect it to your cable, if necessary, and use the PVR function. There are some new DVD players that will allow you to download directly from the Internet and will support web browsing sufficient for you to get to the web site and download material directly to the hard drive. The company had not decided on an exact price for the chips at the time of this review but said the EM8610 will be in the low $40 range in 10k quantities because it supports high definition television (HDTV), multiple streams, and has a RISC processor on board. The EM8605 will be about $35 in 10k quantities. Samples will be available in March with production scheduled for June 2003. EM8605 Data Sheet EM8610 Data Sheet

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