Imagination launches POWERVR FRC271 Frame Rate Conversion IP Core

June 14, 2011 -- Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia and communications technologies company, announces its latest frame rate conversion (FRC) IP core POWERVR FRC271, delivering full motion estimation motion compensation (MEMC) frame rate conversion to 1080P240 in a silicon area from under 1.5 mm2 in 40LP.

Says Tony King-Smith, VP Marketing, Imagination Technologies: “Frame rate conversion is a technology that is fast becoming mainstream, but in order to do so successfully it needs FRC271. This is the industry’s first FRC core that is sufficiently small while offering the required performance to enable deployment of FRC both in high volume mobile and embedded SoC applications, as well as more traditional FRC applications such as TV. Consumers and manufacturers alike will benefit from FRC271’s unrivalled size and performance, combined with Imagination’s highly regarded SoC IP integration and low power capabilities.”

Featuring improved subtitle & station logo handling, greatly reduced artefact levels, FRC271 has been designed to meet the performance requirements of mass market deployment, building on the successful FRC270.

With Imagination Technologies expertise in the area of display processing, Imagination Technologies’ partners have shipped 10s of millions of units of POWERVR Display IP into the market to date. POWERVR FRC271 is available for licensing now.

FRC271 enables film content at 24 frames per second (fps)  & video content at 50/60 fps  to be converted to smooth 120 or 240Hz output, for greatly enhanced viewer satisfaction because of the excellent de-judder and motion de-blur characteristics.

Low frame rate (15Hz & below)  material such as internet videos, video conferencing (e.g. H.264 SVC base layer at 7.5 fps), mobile TV (e.g. 1-seg at 15fps) can be greatly enhanced by viewing at 30 or even 60 fps.  Stereoscopic (S3D) material is handled, by converting the frame rate for each eye from 24 to 60 or 120 fps.

Key features of the POWERVR FRC271 frame rate conversion IP core include:

• Advanced motion search algorithm that ensures accurate vectors, minimising artefacts
• Arbitrary frame rate conversion, from any input frame rate to any output frame rate
• Advanced cadence detector, detecting 3:2, 2:2 as well as other cadences & bad-edits.
• Enhanced subtitle & station logo handling
• Border detection to enhance performance at edges of screens & objects
• Scene change detection to eliminate artefacts caused from interpolation across scenes
• Film de-judder, motion blur reduction and low frame rate enhancement
• Optimal implementation in SoC designs, with very efficient memory subsystem alignment
• Very low host CPU requirement < 1 Mips typical required.
• Full support up to 1080P 240Hz output.
• Full support for stereoscopic 3D

Enabling Complete SoCs

The low silicon area requirements of FRC271 enable chip manufacturers and OEMs to achieve very significant system cost reductions by enabling the integration of FRC capabilities within their SoC designs.

In combination with other Imagination Technologies IP such as POWERVR I2P, VXD & VXE, partners can bring to market complete SoC solutions, which would previously have required multiple devices, in a single cost effective device.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE:IMG) – a global leader in multimedia and communication technologies – creates and licenses market-leading multimedia IP cores for graphics, video, and display processing, multi-threaded embedded processing/DSP cores and multi-standard communications and connectivity processors. These silicon intellectual property (IP) solutions for systems-on-chip (SoC) are complemented by platform level IP and services, a strong array of software tools and drivers and extensive developer and middleware ecosystems. Target markets includemobile phone, handheld multimedia, home consumer entertainment, mobile and low-power computing, and in-car electronics.Its licensees include many of the leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies. Imagination has corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom, with sales and R&D offices worldwide. See: www.imgtec.com. 

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