Imagination announces its new high bandwidth Ensigma Series4 Radio Processing Units (RPU) supporting 802.11ac, 4x4 MIMO and beyond

Multicore scalability and ultra-high bandwidth bus fabrics result in a unique universal solution for global multi-standard connectivity and broadcast communications SoCs

November 12, 2012 -- Tokyo, Japan -- Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia and communications technologies company, announced today the launch of the latest generation architecture of its unique Ensigma universal communications IP core family.

The Ensigma Series4 IP architecture features a highly scalable multicore approach for maximum configurability, combined with an ultra-high bandwidth programmable bus fabric and an extremely efficient VLIW-based 4th generation modulation processor with multi-context capabilities. This enables Series4 RPUs to be configured to 4x4 MIMO, 802.11ac and beyond, as well as more than 30 standards for every major 802.11 profile, TV and radio broadcast, Bluetooth and many other broadcast and connectivity communications standards.

The technology is being launched at Embedded Technology in Yokohama, November 14-16 2012 (Booth C-20), where Imagination will be giving talks about its architectures, and demonstrating products utilising its current Ensigma Series3 RPUs in product from a range of partners including Toumaz/Frontier Silicon and SiS.

Ensigma Series4 RPUs implement all of the connectivity modem and broadcast receiver requirements of tomorrow’s complex SoCs. With in excess of thirty different deployable standards available for Ensigma RPUs today, it is by far the world’s most comprehensive baseband solution for integration into SoCs and advanced chipsets.

Series4 RPUs are offered in a wide spectrum of performance capabilities, ranging from MIMO-capable multi-stream cores featuring dynamic support for mixed simultaneous standards to single-stream configurations that can replace one or more external chips or hard-wired cores.

Says Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination: “Imagination is one of the very few companies with the resources to deliver not only a communications processor architecture as advanced as the Ensigma Series4, but also production-ready fully characterised microcode plus driver implementations of every standard we claim is supported. We have invested 100’s of man years in Ensigma technology and algorithms over more than ten years to get to this point, which we believe makes the Ensigma Series4 RPU by far the world’s most comprehensive and complete communications IP solution available today.

“As consumer, industrial and automotive products continue to get more advanced in their communications requirements, and aggressive global competition continues to drive costs downwards, the Ensigma RPU is the ultimate communications solution for SoC-based systems. We are confident our RPUs will be as significant to the next wave of SoC integration as our PowerVR GPUs are to today’s SoCs.”

With complete ready-to-deploy modulation and coding software for every one of the 30 or more supported standards, and a sophisticated, highly programmable and flexible hardware architecture that can be easily scaled to address everything from the smallest most cost-sensitive embedded connected processor to the most advanced global chassis-based multi-tuner connected Smart TV.

Ensigma Series4 is the ideal solution for markets including TV and set-top boxes, radio (consumer or automotive), tablets / smartphones, connected consumer, industrial and automotive products, and embedded processors powering the Internet of Things.

Ensigma Series4 in Detail

Ensigma Series4 delivers support for all key standards for: TV including DVB-T2, DVB-T, ISDB-T, SBTVD, ATSC, GB20600-2006 (CTTB), DVB-S2,DVB-S,ISDB-S, DVB-C2, DVB-C, J.83B, ISDB-C; Analogue TV; Mobile TV including DVB-H, T-DMB, 1-Seg ISDB-T; Connectivity including 802.11abgn, MIMO, 802.11n, MIMO 802.11ac, (Complete, Fully Embedded, or Thin MAC with simultaneous Bluetooth); and Radio including DAB/DAB+, HD Radio, 3-seg ISDB-T, ISDB-Tmm, DRM, FM, AM.

The Ensigma Series4 architecture uniquely combines fully programmable modulation and coding processors with multi-standard hardware accelerators and a multi-stream DMA (Direct Memory Access) fabric to yield a power and area optimized multi-standard baseband solution. The core modulation and coding processor is complemented by an array of configurable, and in some cases programmable, hardware accelerators implementing functions less suited to software such as signal down-conversion and advanced error correction, and are themselves re-used between standards.

The physical layer technology is complemented within the RPU by an embedded low-power 32-bit Meta processor. The Meta processor within the RPU implements high level control APIs, removes system dependencies and performs task – such as the Wi-Fi MAC - that might otherwise have been implemented on less power-efficient application processors.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies - a global leader in multimedia and communication technologies - creates and licenses market-leading processor solutions for graphics, video, and display, embedded processing, multi-standard communications and connectivity, and cross-platform V.VoIP & VoLTE. These silicon and software intellectual property (IP) solutions for systems-on-chip (SoC) are complemented by an extensive portfolio of software drivers, developer tools and extensive market and technology-focused ecosystems. Target markets include mobile phone and multimedia, connected home consumer, mobile and tablet computing, in-car electronics, telecoms, health, smart energy and connected sensors and controllers. Imagination’s licensees include many of the world’s leading semiconductor, network operator and electronics OEM/ODM companies. Corporate headquarters are located in the United Kingdom, with sales and R&D offices worldwide. See: www.imgtec.com