Argon Design licenses Argon Streams VP9 to Chips&Media

Argon Streams VP9 provides full conformance testing of VP9 Video Decoders.

19^th March 2015 – Cambridge, UK – Argon Design Ltd, a leading supplier of advanced video verification solutions, has signed licensing and support agreements for Argon Streams VP9 with leading video codec IP provider Chips&Media.

Google’s VP9 codec standard offers higher levels of video compression than previous video codecs, particularly for high resolution video, to allow internet streaming of Ultra High Definition video content.

Argon Streams VP9 is a set of conformance test bit-streams providing full coverage and verification of VP9 video decoders. The bit-streams are derived directly from Google’s VP9 Reference Code using the same compiler technology that was developed for Argon’s highly successful HEVC bit-streams. The process uses directed random numbers to ensure that the bit-streams provide comprehensive coverage testing of all functions, value ranges and cross coverage combinations in the VP9 specification. Argon Streams VP9 includes full support for VP9 profiles 0, 1, 2 and 3.

Gilligan Choe, Head of Sales for Chips&Media states that, “We have had excellent results using Argon Streams to verify our HEVC decoder family, so it was a natural choice to use Argon Streams VP9 for the verification of our VP9 decoder. Chips&Media is now ready to release a VP9 decoder together with a HEVC decoder in a single core (WAVE412). This new IP core provides an extremely small size for semiconductor companies integrating both HEVC and VP9 in their System on Chip designs“.

Alan Scott, CEO of Argon Design, adds, “We are delighted to announce this license for Argon Streams VP9 with an industry leading company such as Chips&Media”.

Argon Streams is sold and supported worldwide by Chipstart. For more information visit www.argondesign.com/streamsVP9 , contact your local Chipstart sales representative, or email streams@argondesign.com .

Sample video frame from an Argon Streams VP9 bit-stream shows the directed random number based approach.

About Argon Design Ltd

Argon Design, based in Cambridge, UK, is a high technology consultancy with a successful track record in semiconductor design and embedded product development. With a history of complex IP and ASIC designs, including custom processors, video codecs and 2D/3D graphics engines, Argon Design has developed a video decoder verification solution called Argon Streams. Available for both the HEVC and VP9 standards, Argon Streams meets the demanding verification and test coverage needs of IP and Semiconductor developers.

Visit www.argondesign.com/streamsVP9.

About Chips&Media

Chips&Media is a leading video IP provider based in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Its advanced ultra-low power and high performance video technology has been chosen by more than 70 top-tier semiconductor companies based in US, Europe, Korea, Taiwan, China and Japan and is proven in silicon reaching 260 millions of units. For more information, please visit the company’s web site at Visit www.chipsnmedia.com

About ChipStart LLC

ChipStart is a semiconductor intellectual property and design services company based in Palo Alto, California. ChipStart provides sales, marketing and design support engagement solutions for companies that provide third party semiconductor IP, high quality pre-verified subsystem solutions, and support design services for ASIC and fabless semiconductor companies. ChipStart’s solutions are used as critical components of communications, consumer and computing products including switches, routers, modems, cellular phones, set-top boxes, HDTVs, DVD players and PCs.

For more information, see www.chip-start.com.