PowerVR moves to HD

Imagination Technologies has launched a video encoder family of IP that provides H.264 High Profile (HP) at HD resolutions.
The newest member of the POWERVR VXE encoder family delivers the highest quality encode ever seen in a synthesisable IP core, and offers the most complete implementation of the High and Main Profile toolsets of any IP core available in the market today, says the company. This translates to improved image quality at all bit rates, and enables ultra-low bitrates to be achieved for encoded streams with minimum degradation from the original source image data.

"With the relentless growth in demand for high quality user-generated content in all forms of mobile devices, we've seen tremendous interest in our VXE HD video encoder products. Our partners have evaluated our advanced encoding algorithms used in VXE380 against many other solutions, and the feedback we're getting indicates we have a winning solution that is the ideal complement to the growing numbers of HD resolution image sensors now being deployed in mobile devices," said Tony King-Smith, VP marketing at Imagination.

POWERVR VXE encodes video sequences and still images to a wide range of compression standards including H.264 High, Main and Baseline Profiles, H.263, MPEG-4, M-JPEG and JPEG. These cores offload the entire video/still encode processing to hardware, minimising host CPU processing load, enabling lowest power solutions without compromising performance. The core is fully supported by an accompanying software stack, which includes an OpenMAX IL compliant API under Linux.
The core is scalable, allowing Full HD video to be encoded, as well as offering the ability to record at extremely high frame rates (e.g. >1200 fps at QVGA) for detailed slow motion capture - one of the most sought after features for encoders today. Support for 4K resolutions is also possible, due to Imagination's unique scalable architecture.
The third generation, intelligent motion search algorithm dramatically reduces memory bandwidth requirements, whilst offering an even larger effective search range to give the best possible video quality and compression ratios. As memory access is one of the key sources of high power consumption for a SoC (System-on-Chip), this reduction in bandwidth also helps lower the overall SoC power requirements.
The IP core contains a small embedded 32-bit META processor, which ensures that the rate control algorithms are both flexible and highly capable, without burden or reliance on the host processor. This flexibility gives designers the ability to meet specific rate control requirements for the most demanding applications.
The VXE380 IP core, like all of Imagination's IP cores, is designed with ease of system integration in mind, requiring minimal external components, supporting memory interfaces optimised for all popular DRAMs including the latest DDR3 devices.
The POWERVR VXE family of encoders is ideal for a wide range of consumer and embedded applications including mobile phones, digital cameras, Blu-Ray disc authoring, portable media players, video conferencing, surveillance, personal navigation devices, personal video recorders and hardware encode accelerators.
The POWERVR VXE380 IP core is available for licensing now.

HD video broadcast network launched by Akamai

In a move that has big implications for the developers of equipment that receives multimedia - whether tethered or portable - Akamai Technologies has launched the first platform to deliver HD video online to viewers using Adobe Flash technology, Microsoft Silverlight, and to the iPhone, at broadcast scale. The Akamai HD Network is the only solution that supports live and on-demand HD streaming with a highly-personalized and interactive online experience that matches and complements HD television.
As a first-of-its-kind streaming platform, the Akamai HD Network is designed as one, comprehensive HD network reaching multiple playback environments and devices, including Flash, Silverlight, and the iPhone. Using its globally-distributed EdgePlatform of more than 50,000 servers, the Akamai HD Network enables content providers to deliver more HD content than previously possible – due to its wide-scale distribution in 70 countries and increased throughputs in more than 900 networks.
This means that Silverlight and Flash will be a key element of any embedded multimedia software design.

The Akamai HD Network uses:
· Adaptive Bitrate Streaming - Unique network and player streaming process that is designed to enable uninterrupted playback at HD bitrates that seamlessly adjusts to fluctuations in available bandwidth to provide the best quality possible for each user
· Instant Response – Immediate response to viewer interactions with the video player, including sub-second time-shifting (such as pause, rewind, seek and play commands) video startup times, and seamless stream switching
· HD Video Player – Open, standards-based video player for faster time to market
· HD Player Authentication - Authenticates player for all three environments ensuring only authorized players access content

“Seeing is believing,” said Paul Sagan, President and CEO, Akamai. “With the Akamai HD Network, we are revolutionizing the way content traverses the Internet with a new approach to bringing an HDTV-like experience online. We’re entering a different online world, where many content owners and publishers need to deliver HD-quality video to a much wider online audience, with a higher level of interactivity for consumers. Delivering ‘web-quality’ content to ‘web-sized’ audiences is one thing, but delivering HD-quality content to broadcast-scale audiences is another.”
Two key trends have made it necessary to now evolve how streaming media is delivered on the Internet. First, online audiences have grown to broadcast scale. Second, those viewers are demanding higher quality content. Studies show that when higher quality video content is offered, viewer engagement time increases. Supporting this level of traffic requires a global network that can manage millions of simultaneous users streaming very high bitrate content. The Akamai HD Network was designed for large-scale broadcasters and film distributors looking to increase audience engagement and to expand revenues by complementing traditional mediums, such as TV and DVD, with the Internet.
The Akamai HD Network offers adaptive bitrate streaming capabilities across playback formats that are specifically optimized to work with Akamai’s HD EdgePlatform for the fastest and most consistent video bitrate switching - enabling an instant and uninterrupted viewing experience for consumers even at the highest bitrates. Leveraging Akamai’s entire HTTP footprint, video over Akamai’s HD Network is delivered from servers closer to audiences around the world. As a result, Akamai can more tightly control the amount of time the player needs to buffer before switching streams. The shorter the buffer, the faster the stream can adapt and respond to changing end-user conditions. The result is intended to create a seamless HD quality video experience – with little to no buffering.
“We are excited to see Akamai’s commitment to HTTP adaptive streaming as the future of online video delivery, as we have worked closely over the past year to build a robust end-to-end media delivery platform with IIS Smooth Streaming and Silverlight,” said Steve Sklepowich, director for Silverlight at Microsoft Corp. “Together, we’ve proven that these true HD experiences can dramatically increase online viewing times for broadcasters. In addition, Microsoft’s ability to deliver live and on-demand protected streams with Smooth Streaming and Silverlight, along with enhanced interactive experiences, such as multiple camera angles, alternate language tracks and in-stream data feeds, have raised the bar for online delivery using HTTP.”

Android moves into home equipment

MIPS Technologies has ported Google's Android operating system to its processor cores, aiming to drive the software, and Web applications, into more areas such as digital TV and set top boxes.
With Android and the open source development community around it, developers can easily and quickly create new applications and OEMs can leverage the growing set of applications for their devices, says MIPS. With the MIPS ecosystem around Android, OEMs will be able to quickly optimize Android for their specific platforms.

"In the future, almost every consumer device will be connected to the Internet and its wide array of content," said Rich Wawrzyniak, senior analyst for ASIC and SoC at Semico Research Corporation. "Leveraging Android to quickly and easily bring new and innovative applications and user interfaces to devices beyond the mobile phone is a very appealing proposition for consumers. Android also removes applications from their ties to specific hardware systems and opens the market for companies like MIPS Technologies to move into new market segments. I can understand why MIPS’ partners and licensees are excited about Android on MIPS. It is a potential game changer."

MIPS Technologies is establishing development tools and system integration partnerships with service providers to help its licensees with porting, integration, and testing. Partnerships initially include those with Embedded Alley and Viosoft.
Embedded Alley, a leading provider of embedded Linux solutions, is offering support for SoC implementations from MIPS Technologies’ licensees. The Embedded Alley Development System for Android-based Devices includes processor and board support as well as a version of the Android Dalvik virtual machine (VM) optimized for the MIPS instruction set and CPU cores; extending the Android bionic library, linker and other software infrastructure for the MIPS architecture; and providing integration and testing board support industry-specific device drivers, CODECs and other middleware. Embedded Alley is already enabling Android on devices built with the Alchemy Processor family from RMI—providing an Android-ready Linux kernel for RMI Au1250 and the Embedded Alley Development System for Alchemy reference platforms.

“Embedded Alley and MIPS Technologies have been working closely to deliver value to our mutual customers,” said Matthew Locke, COO, Embedded Alley. “Following the success of Android in the mobile phone market, many companies have been looking at the potential of Android beyond mobile handsets, but it just wasn’t clear how to make Android a reality for other types of devices. Embedded Alley, together with MIPS -- a strong leader in the digital home marketplace -- has determined what it will take, and we are making it happen. We are enabling OEMs and developers to create new Android-based designs."

Viosoft Corporation is a key partner for MIPS based software development tools. Viosoft’s Arriba tools deliver comprehensive support for single and multi-core platforms. The tools support Android, and are available today.

“The MIPS architecture has consistently delivered high-performance Linux platforms with low power consumption, making it ideal for VM-based environments such as Android,” said Art Lee, vice president of business development, Viosoft Corporation. “To enable the porting, debugging and deployment of the Android platform on MIPS, Viosoft provides a set of unique and very powerful tools that dramatically reduce development time, risk and costs. Working closely with MIPS Technologies, we are focused on helping OEMs quickly and easily bring their Android platforms to market.”

Pansonic shows 150in plasma screen

It's the Consumer Electronics Show again, and this year Panasonic is pushing the size of its HD plasma screen to 150inches! It is also likely to be selling fro roughly the same price (£50,000) as last year's 103in version. But this is going to need some high class content, or be viewed from quite a long way away!

Fuel cells and virtual network computing show polar bears

Photo: © R & C Buchanan
Virtual Network Computing (VNC) embedded technology from a company in Cambridge has been used to control and maintain a network of remote cameras in Canada to track the movement and behaviour of polar bears.
The project used an IP-based network system of digital microwave links to transmit images across the tundra from Cape Churchill cameras to the remote town of Churchill, which was in turn connected to the control centre in Alaska via the Internet. The work also involved a Tundra Buggy that fed live Polar Bear Cam streaming video through a 45MB wireless link to the town of Churchill and then to the National Geographic website.
The system was set up by SeeMore Wildlife Systems that specializes in remote wildlife monitoring solutions, to help researchers from Polar Bears International researchers from the University of Florida to film the dwindling number of polar bears as they prepared to head off to the Arctic for the winter.
"As the cameras were unmanned and powered by methanol fuel cells, it would have been virtually impossible to keep the system running without using VNC," said wildlife filmmaker Daniel Zatz of SeeMore Wildlife Systems. "VNC provided full control and monitoring of the camera network and remote PC server in Churchill from the relative warmth and luxury of project HQ in Alaska."
One of the benefits of realVNC is that it works with virtually any platform or operating system across any network, using just a simple downloadable interface or through a browser. This meant that Zatz and his team could log in, manage the network and download images directly from a PC, Mac or even handheld device.
The VNC technology comes from RealVNC in Cambridge which was originally developed in the AT&T labs in the City under Porf Andy Hopper. With over 100 million software downloads, VNC is a de facto standard for remote control and has been used widely in hundreds of different products and applications, from helpdesks to virtualization.
RealVNC has broadened the scope for VNC software by founding Adventiq to design semiconductors and software for sending keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) signals via IP networks market. Products containing Adventiq chips and embedded VNC software are already on the market.

Handheld projectors start emerging

The problem of displaying information from ever smaller devices has been a major headache fro several years. Micromachined technology such as Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processor (DLP) have driven down the size of projectors to just-about-handheld (see previous stories) and now a new venture is tackling the same market.
Microvision of Redmond, Washington has developed a prototype of a truly handheld, battery powered projector (right) for mobile phones and personal media players that goes on show at the CES consumer electronics show next week (Jan 7th), although production is planned for the end of the year.
Code-named SHOW, Microvision's pico projector uses a single micromachined mirror (rather than TI's array of mirrors) and laser scanning to get the size down to 7mm thick and keep the power down. The images projected can range anywhere from 12 inches (30 cm) to 100 inches (2.5 m) in size depending upon the projection distance and are always in focus. The production version of the device is expected to offer approximately 2.5 hours of continuous battery life, sufficient to watch a full-length movie without a need for recharging.
Microvision says that SHOW can project a widescreen, WVGA (848 X 480 pixels), DVD quality image, compared to other miniature projectors that typically only offer QVGA resolution (320 x 240 pixels). The technology is already being used for a head-up display in development for cars.
"While mobile multi-media subscription services are on the rise, handset manufacturers, content providers and service providers view tiny cell phone displays as a barrier to stronger consumer adoption of their products and services,” said Alexander Tokman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Microvision. "SHOW is a significant milestone for Microvision and is proof that our technology is maturing according to plan and is close to being market-ready. Microvision's low-profile and low-power design, supported by leading supply chain partners, is very attractive to numerous mobile handset device manufactures, carriers and content providers. We believe that this milestone is meaningful not only for our company but for the industry at large," he said.

Shake up in the set top box business

Philips has sold its set top box and connectivity business to Pace Micro Technology of the UK in a move that will help Pace achieve the scale that it needs to compete effectively in global markets. The company has been struggling in recent years, although it has a stream of contracts from the US.
The deal also includes the connectivity business, and Pace has been a leader in this area aiming to integrate the connectivity around the home into the set top box to help maintain margins and prevent the business moving to low cost Chinese suppliers.
Philips agreed in principle to divest the STB and CS businesses to Pace in exchange for 70 million Pace shares. The proposed transaction is subject to approvals from Pace shareholders, the relevant regulatory authorities and Philips' workers council. After completion, Philips will become a 23% shareholder in the combined business, representing a market value of around £60m.
The outcome of the transaction will result in a combination of strengths of two leading players in the industry, creating one of the largest set-top-box players in the world at a time when the shift from analogue to digital TV is rapidly increasing. Commenting on the sale, Philippe Alcaras, Business Unit leader Philips Home Networks said: "We feel that the rapidly changing dynamics of the markets in which the STB and CS businesses operate will inevitably culminate in further industry consolidation. By striking a deal with Pace now, we gain the first-mover advantage and it shows Philips' determination to secure a leading role for our businesses, and make them even more relevant to our customers and technology partners."
The two businesses had estimated sales of EUR 425 million in 2007 and employed 335 people, predominantly based in France, who would transfer to Pace as part of the transaction. The remainder of Home Networks, Home Communications, which includes Internet Telephony and Home Telephony (DECT), will become part of the Peripherals & Accessories unit within Philips' Consumer Lifestyle sector.

It’s the tools, stupid! Microchip moves to 32bit with MIPS

Low cost microcontroller maker Microchip is moving to 32bits using the M4K architecture from MIPS Technologies.

This is a key move for both Microchip, whose PIC 8bit and 16bit microcontrollers are used in millions of places, and for MIPS, that has been missed in the early coverage of the story.

The key is the tools environment. Microchip gets a ready made ecosystem of debuggers and simulators, all of which are much more important in the 32bit space as the point of going to 32bits is to use off the shelf operating systems and readily available protocol stacks etc. These are all available for MIPS already, which is a stunning advantage for Microchip.

But there is also a huge benefit for MIPS, as there is now a tremendous potential installed base of designers who want to use Microchip controllers. This will work in two ways – it encourages and further strengthens the ecosystem and tool development as there are now hundreds of thousands of potential customers for the third party embedded software developers and for the tool vendors. Suddenly the MIPS ecosystem is now hugely viable. That plays into MIPS’ system on chip market, as a successful Microchip design can go to a single chip custom ASIC chip or semi-custom ASSP chip without changing the application software, providing an easier route to lower costs and higher volumes.

Microchip is using the M4K low end variant of the MIPS architecture which was announced last week along with a wide range of analogue peripherals to go around the core from MIPS' earlier acquisition of ChipIdea.

Industry comment to follow……

Plastic TV comes to the market

Sony is reported to be ready to launch the world's first TV based on OLED light emitting plastic polymer technology at the beginning of December in Japan.
The value is that it is thin - just 3mmm thick. The problem is that it is small and expensive - only 11 inches and Y20,000, or just under £1000 (and even then the suggestion is that this is a loss). So it will fit a niche market where light and thin really, really matters - so as a panel on high end consumer systems of all sorts, in luxury kitchens, on portable equipment, that sort of thing. The trouble is to drive enough volume to get the price down and to get the size of the panels up so that it is truly a consumer proposition - and that means above 20in for that same £1000 price point (even for PC monitors it needs to be 17in). That will be a struggle, even for Sony, and a lot more investment required.

Graceful degradation in encoding

An interesting element of the recent launch of a family of SD video codec cores from ARC is the use of 'graceful degradation' in the encoding process.
Depending on the resources available - and that can be power or memory - the cores can throw out various tools and reduce the quality of the encoding to extend the battery life or the recording time - this is all up to the designer and allows systems based on the cores to be differentiated through these engineering tradeoffs.

The five cores are based on the recently introduced VRaptor Multicore Architecture, each is programmable, encodes and decodes a wide range of popular video standards, and comes with optimized media processing elements including:
o Up to two 128-bit SIMD Media Processors
o A dual-channel media-optimized DMA engine
o Separate multi-standard encoding and decoding accelerators
o Programmable motion estimation accelerator
o SoC development tools
o Optimized video codecs:
o (encoders) H.264 BP, MPEG-4 SP/ASP, H.263 profile 0, and JPEG
o (decoders) H.264 BP, MPEG-4 SP/ASP, H.263 profile 0, VC-1 SP, MPEG-2 MP, MJPEG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, and PNG



All this is very interesting when video becomes a key IP block for the next decade.

VIA ships 1W x86 processor

To tackle deeply embedded and power sensitive applications, VIA has launched a 500MHz x86 processor that runs at under 1W.
The Eden ULV processor has been designed from the ground up to meet the low power requirements of a wide range of industrial, commercial and ultra mobile applications and has an idle power of 100mW.The 1W power level allows a 21mm x 21mm NanoBGA2 package to be used for more space sensitive applications.
The new processor can be combined with the ultra compact VIA CX700/M system media processor, an advanced all-in-one digital media chipset with a maximum operating power of just 3.5 watts, supporting a wide range of multimedia, connectivity and storage options and enabling system platforms with a maximum power of less than 10 watts.
It is being used by:

AAEON, Acrosser, Adlink, Advansus, Advantech, Aquila, Arbor, Avalue, Axiomtek, Biostar, Bona, Boser, Commate, E-TOP, Flexus, Freetech, Ibase, IEI, Inhand, IPOX, Kontron, Lanner, Liantec, Maple, Nexcom, Posiflex, Portwell, Termtek, Unication and Unicorn.

“With a maximum power of just 1W, the 500MHz VIA Eden ULV processor has finally brought x86 design into the realm of the embedded market,” said Richard Hung, Product Manager at Advantech. “This remarkably low power consumption has allowed our new PCM-4372 to provide all the power, performance and versatility of the x86 architecture to our customers.”

“The 500MHz VIA Eden ULV was the logical choice for our new 5.25” SBC, EBM-CX700 and B5 size slim PC, the ASM-CX700,” said Sam Wang, Vice-President of Avalue. “Now that VIA has brought to market an x86-based processor that doesn’t have the prohibitively high power consumption of other offerings, the benefits in terms of versatility, availability of compatible software and hardware, and performance can’t be overlooked.”

Integrated into the processor is the VIA StepAhead Technology Suite, which boasts an extensive array of performance-enhancing features including the VIA V4 bus at 400MHz, sixteen pipeline stages, branch prediction and an efficiency-enhanced 128KB full-speed exclusive L2 cache, ensuring the processor’s low power consumption doesn’t come at the expense of performance.
It also integrates VIA's PadLock Security Engine security tools to enable real-time military-grade encryption of data such as AES encryption, Secure Hash Algorithm SHA-1 and SHA-256, and a Montgomery Multiplier to accelerate the encryption process used under RSA and other public key transmissions as well as NX Execute Protection to prevent worms from propagating, and dual quantum based random number generators.

“Giving our customers the building blocks to create innovative systems and driving PC technology into new markets defines our ‘Small is Beautiful’ strategy,” said Richard Brown, Vice President of Corporate Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “With its performance, energy efficiency and compact size, our new VIA Eden ULV processor provides a way for embedded developers to add real value to their systems and push the market forward.”

Intrinsity goes for low power with ARM variant...

High performance logic company Intrinisty has used its high speed logic on the ARM cortex R4 core, but instead of gong for the highest possible speed has gone for a low power option.
This is producing twice the clock speed possible with traditional logic, so the Cortex R4X core will run at 600MHz on TSMC's 65nm LP process. The processor implementations uses Intrinsity’s Fast14 1-of-N Domino Logic (NDL) technology, which enables faster circuit speeds while minimizing power consumption and area.
This may well be an admission of defeat for Intrinsity, which has had a high performance MIPS version since it started 10 years ago now, but moved to a licensing model in 2004 and includes both processors and high speed memory.
“Intrinsity FastCores incorporate Fast14 technology, and we use this to enable breakthrough embedded processor performance with very low power consumption,” said Bob Russo, CEO, Intrinsity. “By working closely with ARM on the development of the Cortex-R4X processor implementations, together we will be able to reach a much broader base of designers who are looking for ways to achieve higher performance without sacrificing power efficiency and bring new SoCs to market quickly.”
Moving to a low power approach makes sense for ARM, and the R4X is aimed at storage, printer and networking applications, so taking on MIPS which is more dominant in these areas.
“Mass storage, printing and networking applications need ever increasing levels of performance to handle higher data rates, more media services and new functionality such as encryption,” said Graham Budd, executive vice president and general manager, Processor Division at ARM. “Through this relationship we can extend the performance range of the Cortex-R4 processor to meet these requirements and those of new market domains.”
All versions of the Cortex-R4 processor offer embedded Error Correcting Code (ECC) technology which monitors memory accesses to detect and correct errors, providing very high reliability and availability.
ARM says the Cortex-R4X processor implementations are available for licensing immediately, but will be shipped in Q1 next year. Expect other versions to follow, and an Intrinsity version of the Cortex A8 (the A8X perhaps, but more likely the A9) would hit 1.8GHz and perhaps top 2GHz on a high performance process.


... and sets up acquisition prospect

This technology looks vital to ARM, so expect Intrinsity to be an acquisition target. While it has licensed the technology to ATI (now part of AMD) and has investment from PowerPC licensee AMCC, neither of these are a major stumbling block to being part of ARM and fits well with the processor and IP design philosophy. If this proves popular, and there is little reason why not, then ARM cannot afford NOT to buy it.

Scalable video standard emerges

The electronics industry now has a global, open standard for scalable video that will allow the same bitstream to be used for many different devices and connections. This is potentially huge for the hardware, software and content industry as it can dramatically simplify the costs and implementation of providing video.

The Scalable Video Coding (SVC) standard has been developed by the MPEG Joint Video Team (JVT) in collaboration with the International telecommunications Union and provides scalable video with full compatibility of base layer information so that it can be decoded by existing AVC decoders.

The SVC design enables the creation of a video bitstream that is structured in layers so that devices can decode either the full bitstream or a subset of it with the removal of enhancement layers. Data remaining after the removal of enhancement layers is still decodable, and these scalability modes include higher frame rates, increase of picture resolution and higher quality.

Unlike previous scalable compression solutions, the compression efficiency of SVC is very high and hardly distinguishable from "single-layer" AVC codecs in most operation modes. Due to a novel design which re-uses major components of ordinary AVC decoders and runs only one motion compensation loop, the complexity increase for supporting the scalability features in decoders is kept to a minimum, so decoders supporting SVC will not face a significant cost penalty.

The standard is open and global, being approved as Amendment 3 of the Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard ISO/IEC 14496-10 (also published as ITU-T Rec. H.264).

A new amendment to MPEG-2 Systems also enables the carriage of scalable video data within MPEG-2 program and transport streams, and this is moving to the PDAM (proposed draft amendment) ballot stage of the ISO/IEC approval process. This allows the more efficient AVC video to be carried over MPEG-2 streams for higher spatial or temporal resolution, or higher picture fidelity at the same resolution. One application would be to provide broadcasters with the ability to efficiently deploy premium services without affecting their existing customer base. Set-top boxes with 1080p50/60 SVC capability on top of the existing HD AVC formats can be shipped to premium customers without the need to replace existing HD AVC set-top boxes.

Linux version of Microsoft Surface touch table

An interview in Gizmodo is offering the potential for an open source version of the multi-touch user interface software that is key to Microsoft's $10,000 Surface table PC.
Developed by Peter Hutterer, a researcher in the Wearable Computers Lab at the University of South Australia, MPX or Multi-Pointer X is a modification of the X Windows Server that allows multiple input devices to be used at the same time.

The demo (above) links an MPX-enabled Linux system to a Mitsubishi Electric's DiamondTouch display table which can recognize four different unique users. The software is still in its early stages but shows significant promise, as an open source version will open up more application development, which is vital, and bring down the price of such systems, which is even better. Combined with the new touch technology from Hitachi Displays (below) and its ability to make large panels, there is definitely significant potential for this technology.

Hitachi to drive touch screens into mobile phones

From my story on the front page of Electronics Weekly this week, new touchscreen technology from Hitachi Displays is set to make a real difference to the way mobile phones are designed and used.
Hitachi has developed a new passive technique for touch sensing on mobile phones that does not involve the traditional sensor technologies such as resistive or capacitative sensing. This is a key area where mobile phones in particular fail and could make touch screens much more reliable for use in many different applications.
The technique uses ordinary thin film transistors (TFTs) around the edge of the screen that can detect a change in light when a finger touches the screen. Algorithms are then used to sense where the finger is. This is all integrated into the display, adding touch screen for little extra cost.
“We want to develop a touch sensor without any mechanical components,” said Matt Tapping, sales manager at Hitachi Europe. Hitachi Displays has developed a prototype system and is planning production for the end of next year.
However, at the moment this technique would not be able to handle the newer techniques such as ‘pinching’ used on the Apple iPhone (see below). “This would have to be used for soft keys,” said Tapping.
Future versions could support the more complex user interfaces I expect but that would need more transistors and more complex detection algorithms, and devices such as the iPhone will be able to support premium prices for touchscreens anyway.
But the potential of this is huge, as this technique can also be used screens for all sorts of applications including digital TV where cost and reliability of touch screens have prevented new user interface techniques being used.

iPhone leads to a lot of nonsense

Today's launch of the iPhone has given analysts a rush of blood to the head. In my analysis for Electronics Weekly, it seems that being able to watch TV on mobile phones has all the makings of a new technology bubble. It will come in time, but the initial rush and over-optimistic figures point to a flush of expectation rather than reality.
Analysts are extrapolating from the success of Internet sites such as YouTube and the iPhone's predicted One Touch YouTube access to make predictions that are pure nonsense.
Recent presentations from ABI Research have predicted a growth in mobile TV subscribers from a million this year to 250 million in three years time. Were it to happen, this is a phenomenal growth rate and reminiscent of the worst excesses of the Internet bubble.

While the growth in YouTube subscribers is certainly true, there is no guarantee that people will pay to watch these videos over their mobiles. And pay they will have to, as this will be a revenue generating activity for both the websites and the operators.

Then there are predictions of HDTV on mobiles. The OMAP3 chip from Texas Instruments is adding this capability — and it may well be needed as showing a VGA video (or, worse, quarterVGA) on a large flatscreen looks horrible. But there are problems in downloading large HDTV clips to a phone, storing it on that phone, displaying it and then transferring it to a big display.
Does this mean that the phone will have to have an expensive mini-HDMI connector to plug into the back of your large LCD flatscreen display? Or are we waiting for an UltraWideBand wireless link to transmit a clip at 480Mbit/s over the two metres to the TV? If we are, we will have to wait quite a while for the technology in a form that can be integrated into both the phone and the TV.
There is a small but growing market for mobile TV — for viewing short clips of sport or news, for live action that you can’t wait to see and for boring trips on public transport.

These huge growth predictions do no one any favours and present the electronics business as a group of credulous fools who can be taken to the cleaners all over again by the financiers.

Where will the next semiconductor crash come from?

This has been something that has been concerning me for a while - life is good for the semi guys, but history shows the downturn will come, and it comes from unexpected places.
Traditional theory would predict that the new generation of 12in fabs with 45nm and 32nm coming through in 2009 would create over-supply of chips, driving down the average selling price and causing recession in the industry. But a close eye is kept on this to avoid the problem.
Instead, the problem will come from an unexpected direction - those 8in fabs. The semiconductor industry will face a glut of capacity in the next two years that will fundamentally change the way systems are designed, says the president of the consumer LSI division of Samsung Semiconductor, the second largest chip maker in the world.
"By 2010 the 8in fabs will become severely underutilised, by around 30%, and product pricing will be continuously slashed," said Oh-Hyun Kwon. "That creates a vicious cycle of no investment to how to utilise the fabs is a key point."
This is where the oversupply will come and where the prices will crash.
That oversupply of 130nm and 90nm capacity should be used for devices that don't shrink well such as analogue, RF, sensors and micro machined devices, he said. These are then combined with digital devices made in 45nm and 32nm in system in the same package, rather than integrating all these elements into a single chip.
But this will migrate to chips that are built with the different technologies on the same die in 3D layers, and will change the way chips are designed and packaged, with system-in-a-package becoming much more important.
"We are moving to 45nm circuits at 45nm and then to 3D transistors at 22nm, and we need on chip 3D analysis tools for 3D LSIs," he said.

Price and power war looms for ARM M3 microcontrollers

STMicroelectronics is pushing a new microcontroller based on the ARM Cortex-M3 core, the STM32 line, challenging start-up Luminary Micro which launched $1 parts last year.
The STM32F103 “Performance” line, with 72MHz clock frequency, or the STM32F101 “Access” line, with 36MHz clock frequency. Both lines offer from 32K to 128K of embedded Flash memory but differ in maximum SRAM size and peripheral combinations. At 72MHz, executing from Flash, the STM32 consumes only 36mA, which ST claims is the lowest power consumption in the 32bit market, corresponding to 0.5mA/MHz.
Luminary Micro were the first to launch an ARM Cortex microcontroller using the M3 core over a year ago, and now have 27 variants starting from $1, so there is tremendous price pressure in this market as ST's Access range starts at $1.80. Power figures for the Luminary parts are hard to come by as a lot of the figures are still pending, but from the data sheet the power is 115mW (Idd of 35mA at 3.3V for the LM3S101) or 5.75mW/MHz at 20MHz, which seems a substantial difference.
“Until now, 16bit and 32bit designers have often been faced with difficult choices, involving compromises between factors such as cost, power, and performance and whether to use industry-standard or proprietary platforms,” said Jim Nicholas, general manager of ST’s microcontroller division. “By eliminating the need to make these compromises, the STM32 will lead the obvious convergence of the 16bit and 32bit MCU markets.”
Peripherals on the ST parts include up to 128KB embedded Flash, up to 20KB of RAM, up to two ADCs (12-bit at 1 microsecond conversion time), up to three USARTs; up to two SPI (18MHz master/slave); up to two I2C; up to three 16-bit timers (4 input capture/4 output compare/4 PWM each) and a dedicated 6-PWM timer with embedded dead times for regulation and motor control vector drive applications, as well as USB, CAN, and seven DMA channels.
ST is pushing the low power applications such as medical glucose and cholesterol monitors as well as industrial PLCs, domestic appliances, domestic and industrial security, fire and HVAC systems, and consumer/PC applications such as card readers and biometrics.

Broadcom plays off ARM and MIPS

Broadcom is licensing processor cores from the two arch competitors ARM and MIPS Technologies.
It is licensing the ARM Cortex-M3 for wireless designs and the MIPS 74K announce today for designs over 1GHz such as digital TV, set-top boxes, next generation DVD players/recorders, broadband access, PON, residential gateways and VoIP. Broadcom was the first to license the 74K core in January as an early access customer.
“The rapid convergence of digital devices and the emergence of new consumer markets, including IPTV, HD DVD, Blu-ray Disc and 802.11n, are driving the demand for superior performance, lower system costs and low power consumption,” said Jack Browne, vice president of marketing at MIPS Technologies.
However this is a complex beast with a 17-stage pipeline employing a combination of out-of-order dispatch and asymmetric dual-issue. This gives the higher frequency and higher performance with lower area and power, with 1.7sq mm core area and 0.76 mW/MHz in TMSC's general purpose 65nm process.
Broadcom is using the ARM M3 in a multiple-use licensing agreement for wireless LAN (802.11g,b and n,presumably) and Bluetooth. The key is the Thumb2 instruction set that combines both 16bit and 32bit instructions to keep code size down.
“The superior code density of the ARM Cortex-M3 processor enables a reduced memory footprint while delivering significant performance advantages over existing designs,” said Robert Rango, Group Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom’s Wireless Connectivity Group.
“Broadcom has long been an innovator in the wireless space, creating groundbreaking solutions enabling the delivery of innovative content in the home, office and on-the-move,” said Graham Budd, executive vice president and general manager of the Processor Division at ARM. “By combining Broadcom’s industry-leading wireless expertise, with the ARM Cortex-M3 processor, Broadcom has the building blocks for a compelling solution, tailored to the specific demands and rigors of the evolving consumer electronics market.”

Motorola mops up Modulus

Late last week saw Motorola continuing to strengthen its position in video by acquiring Modulus Video (I don't really think it's a merger, given the relative sizes of the companies).
These guys have been developing great video compression algorithms and systems purely focussed on H.264/AVC for IPTV, cable, broadcast and satellite systems, such as the ME2000 SD/HD encoder above, and has been working with Motorola for the last two years anyway.
This now combines Broadbus, Kreatel, Tut Systems and Netopia for an integrated, end-to-end video delivery system for multiple network architectures.
Great for the US, which is where it seems all the video attention is - we now need to see whether they will start taking Europe a bit more seriously, particularly as IPTV is being driven from here (which is why Kreatel was so important!)
As ever it will be a potential problem for existing Modulus partners such as Sencore, who supplied decoders to them, and other customers, although they were never big on saying who those customers might be.

More of a worry would be Mark Magee, the VP Technology & Chief Architect and Co-Founder, who has avoided Motorola before. He worked at Compression Labs Inc, which was acquired by Motorola / General Instrument, and was before co-founding Modulus Video, he was VP of Engineering for DiviCom (acquired by Harmonic). There he was the architect of the DiviCom MPEG-2 encoder and multiplexer and helped define and develop other DiviCom core products, leading a team of 180 engineers across three R&D centres: this is a man who has done the big teams and the startups and should not need to work now - keeping his expertise will be an interesting challenge for Motorola.

But hey: "Our team will benefit from Motorola's rich heritage and leadership of video delivery expertise," said Bob Wilson, Chairman and CEO of Modulus Video. "Modulus Video will bring to Motorola a software-centric platform that ensures flexibility, reduced cost and fast development time."
"Motorola is committed to offering an integrated, end-to-end video portfolio designed to meet the current and next-generation requirements of operators," said Dan Moloney, President, Home and Networks Mobility business at Motorola. "As consumers demand more high definition video and interactive services, the need for advanced compression technology is increasingly important. As part of its advanced real-time video encoding products, Modulus Video has a powerful architecture and product development framework that is well suited for continued technological advancement."