Imagination's PowerVR graphics and video licensees deliver chips powering the next generation of TV and STB at CES 2013

International CES 2013, Las Vegas, USA -- January 9, 2013 -- Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia and communications technologies company, is showing the products and technologies that are enabling the next wave of TV and STB (Set-Top Box) evolution at CES 2013 (LVCC South Hall 4 Suite S215).

Products from Imagination’s partners in the consumer market will deliver new levels of performance and capabilities to users in 2013, as the ‘smartness’ enabled by Imagination in the mobile market migrates to TVs, STBs and other consumer devices. Imagination enables new levels of efficient performance and flexibility for OEMs, delivering outstanding HD graphics, combined with the configurability and significant cost reductions made possible by Ensigma ‘one world, one chip’ RPUs (see separate release: “Imagination’s communications technologies enable ‘living in the cloud’ for everyone, everywhere at CES 2013”.)

One highlight of CES 2013 is the launch by LG of their new CINEMA 3D Smart TV products, featuring PowerVR Series6 graphics. This demonstrates the unstoppable trend towards high performance GPUs in TVs becoming a ‘must-have’ feature.

Imagination’s licensees in the consumer space include: Entropic, Intel, LG, MStar, MediaTek, Orca, Renesas, Realtek, SiS, Sigma Designs, Sony, Sunplus, ST Microelectronics and others. 

Says Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination: “The next step in TV smartness is to add features inspired by hand held markets for engaging user interfaces, graphics-rich apps, internet/cloud connectivity and more. TV is the largest physical display and the one that users spend the most time with. If the look, speed and responsiveness of the TV are not perfect, users will soon choose other products that do the job better. Imagination is known as the best graphics technology for mobile, so it’s no surprise that more and more leaders in TV SoCs have also now adopted PowerVR.”

With its extensive history in both the TV and mobile space, Imagination is the ideal partner for manufacturers looking to benefit from the convergence of table, phone, TV and other connected home experiences. Many TVs and STBs using Imagination’s technologies are on show throughout the CES exhibition.

Enabling the graphics rich TV

Imagination's PowerVR technologies are licensed by world leading companies to power iconic products delivering the best graphics for UI, Apps and games from smartphone and tablet right though to STB and TV.

PowerVR GPU technology, including the PowerVR Series6 ‘Rogue’ technology used in new TVs from LG, is driven by one of the world’s largest engineering teams dedicated to graphics processor development. It is complemented by Imagination’s PowerVR Insider ecosystem, which provides extensive support and tools to a vibrant community of more than 35,000 developers, who have already created hundreds of thousands of apps optimised for PowerVR powered devices.Imagination’s latest PowerVR Series6 is already in silicon with multiple partners.

PowerVR Series6 ‘Rogue’ GPU cores are designed to offer raw processing performance from 100GFLOPS to more than 1 TFLOP, enabling high-level graphics and GPU Compute performance from mobile through to high-end compute and graphics solutions. Series6 cores are specified to comfortably deliver the raw fill rates required for the latest high resolution TVs.

Video – still the heart of the viewing experience

Imagination has shipped over 500 million units of its PowerVR video decode and encode IP core families, making it the world’s largest supplier of licensable hardware video decode and encode technologies. The PowerVR Series3 video cores are the industry leader in low power, including the ability to decode H.264HP 1080P30 video in under 15mw (40LP) and maintain the fluidity of UI objects in motion with multiple levels of blending and graphics/video integration.

Imagination’s video technologies are designed for tight integration with PowerVR GPUs. With the increasing availability of OLED displays, and 10 bit monitors, which offer a wider colour range, consumers are demanding higher colour fidelity than ever before. The enhanced colour handling of PowerVR D4500MP decode and E4500MP encode technologies enable significantly crisper and more accurate results for today’s demanding TV applications, including wireless display and high quality video capture.

Plus, with ‘beyond real time’ HD video handling, the cores are ideal for today’s most widespread displays and applications, while providing more than enough performance for tomorrow’s ultra-HD TV applications, such as transcode, display surfaces and mosaic screens.

PowerVR D4500MP supports all major video standards including H.264 HP, H.264 MP, H.264 BP, H.264 MVC, VC-1, VP8/WebM, H.263, RMVB (Real Video), MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVS, VP6 and JPEG.

PowerVR E4500MP supports multiple standards including H.264 HP, H.264 MP, H.264 BP, H.264 MVC, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and JPEG.

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 include mobile 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.