Faraday Introduces MPEG4/JPEG Multimedia Platform

An AMBA-based Platform with MPEG Engine Catering to the Multimedia Audio/Video Applications

HSINCHU Taiwan and SUNNYVALE CA, September 17, 2004 -- Faraday Technology Corporation (TAIEX: 3035), a leading fabless ASIC and IP provider, today announced its MPEG4/JPEG Multimedia Platform (FIE8100). The platform is a combination of ARM v4 compatible CPU core Faraday's FA526, AMBA bus, modularized hardware/software IPs, and MPEG4 video codec engine on a single chip. >

Multimedia is a very complex technology owning to its association with many audio/video compression and decompression standards and the integration difficulty between high speed I/O and software. The main thrust of Faraday's multimedia platform is its MPEG4 engine and the ARMv4 compatible FA526 CPU. Being an AHB/APB based system; it can easily integrate Faraday's TV encoder (FTTVE100) and LCD controller (FTLCDC100) to support TV and LCD video display. Customers can also plug in their own AMBA compatible IP cores to develop a multitude of applications.

“We understand today's engineers need far more than just video and data transmissions. They want multimedia solutions such as for multimedia messaging, video conferencing, games, and video streaming, etc.” said George Hwang, Vice President of R&D and Marketing at Faraday Technology. “Faraday will also deliver MP3 encoder, WMA decoder, and AAC decoder in Q4 2004. To ensure future upgradeability, the platform will also include the H.264/WMV video codec in its roadmap.” he added.

Faraday's multimedia platform solution includes fully integrated IPs such as USB OTG / Host / Device, 802.11a /b/g MAC & Baseband, 10/100 Ethernet MAC, and 16/24-bit DSP. It also comes with a complete software package including Linux OS, application layer software, video codec, ACPCM, MP3 codec, and AV sync, etc. The combination is sure to save customers tremendous time in SoC development and verification.

Faraday Multimedia Platform (FIE8100) is optimized for a variety of consumer application such as mobile phone handsets, media players, and digital still cameras. With the addition of 802.11a /b/g MAC & Baseband, 10/100 Ethernet MAC and high-speed I/Os which are being developed by Faraday, the Platform can easily be used to develop applications for the digital home of the future where media centers, media gateways, and surveillance devices may be commonplace.

Product Overview

Faraday's FIE8100 Multimedia Platform is a pre-defined and pre-verified multimedia development solution. The platform adopts AMBA and modularized hardware / software IPs that empowers designers' ability to develop video applications. An option for structured ASIC blocks further empowers the ability of designers to develop derivative chips in an efficient and rapid manner. Faraday's industry-leading structured ASIC technology offers the highest cell density and lowest power dissipation, making the Multimedia Platform a perfect match for portable and digital consumer products.

The FIE8100 Multimedia Platform also comes with a MPEG4 codec engine that supports MPEG4 (ISO / IEC14496-2) and JPEG (ISO / IEC10918-1) applications. The MPEG4 codec engine is capable of accelerating computation intensive tasks such as motion estimation / motion compensation, DCT / IDCT, quantization / inverse quantization, AC / DC prediction, zigzag scan, and variable length coding / decoding. The MPEG4 video encoding and decoding resolution are up to D1 30fps

With FIE8100 platform, customer can significantly reduce the development effort on system firmware for IP camera, DVR, Media player, media server, and many applications that call for MPEG4. Faraday also provides 2 sub-platforms based on FIE8100, namely the FIC8110 MPEG4 encode platform and the FIC8120 MPEG4 codec platform. The novel combination provides our customer with a solution that is highly integrative and low in BOM cost, which could be the key to ultimate success in the marketplace.

Product Specification

	FIE8100	FIC8110	FIC8120
Availability	Oct, 04'	Apr, 05'	Apr, 05'
Package	BGA484	BGA292	BGA292
Target Technology	0.18	0.18	0.18
MCPA size		100K	100K
CPU Technology	FA526- 200MHz 16K/16K	FA526- 200MHz 8K/8K	FA526- 200MHz 8K/8K
MPEG4	Codec D1 @ 30fps	Encode D1 @ 30fps	Codec D1 @ 30fps CIF @ 120fps
Interconnection	USB 2.0 TV encoder 5-in-1 Flash Card Extended AHB	USB 1.1 OTG x2 PCI 2.2 10/100 Ethernet MPCA: Sensor input SD/SMMC	USB1.1 OTG x2 PCI 2.2 10/100 Ethernet MPCA: IDE SD/SMMC
Firmware Support	ADPCM codec Linux driver A/V Sync.	ADPCM Codec Linux driver A/V Sync.	ADPCM Codec MP3 Decode Linux driver A/V Sync.

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