New Mobile Media Processors for Mobile Phones

31st March , 2004

Europe : Building on its experience and expertise in graphics display control technology, Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe today introduced two new advanced Mobile Media Processors (MMPs) for mobile phones and other handheld devices, which will be available in sample quantities from April 2004.

The new MMPs (MB86V00 & MB86V01) incorporate MPEG-4 and JPEG hardware encoding and decoding functionality. They include two-dimensional and three-dimensional (2D/3D) graphics accelerators with a 24bpp display controller. The camera YUV interface is supported by both CCD and CMOS camera modules (up to 2MPixel), which can be attached to the MMPs simultaneously, with one active at a time. These have the ability to interface between two LCDs, enabling users to display multiple images simultaneously on two separate screens. The devices feature a flexible CPU interface that enables easy connection to existing baseband or application processors.

Other features include the ability to display three windows, and to mix multiple visual images using alpha blending (transparency). The devices also provide hardware support for image scaling and rotation, and also include BitBlt and texture mapping features.

When the internal clock operates at 13.5MHz, and the MPEG-4 codec (QCIF@15fps) is functioning, the device consumes just 13mW (codec core), a much lower power consumption than any other such device. It is also possible to operate the MPEG-4 codec (QVGA@15fps) with the internal clock at 54MHz, allowing not only low power consumption but also high-performance.

To eliminate the need for external memory, the MB86V00 device incorporates 64Mbits of SDRAM as a system-in-package. To minimise power requirements, sophisticated clock-gating techniques shut down logical functions when they are not needed or not in use. The advanced power management hardware is managed by Fujitsu's firmware which monitors various chip activities and throttles the clocks accordingly.

"Adding one of these MMPs to the central processor typically found in handheld devices enables the device to handle sophisticated graphics with ultra-low power consumption," said Dirk Weinsziehr, Senior Director Marketing for Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe. "With the proliferation of features in mobile phones and PDAs, there is a growing need for a specialised application processor to handle multimedia functions without sacrificing battery life. Our new devices meet those requirements."

MMP Expertise Based on Fujitsu's Leadership in Graphics Display Controllers
The design expertise for the new MMP series comes from Fujitsu's technical leadership in graphics display controller devices, which were developed in collaboration with major automobile manufacturers and are now installed in more than 60 percent of the dashboard navigation systems sold worldwide.

Fujitsu's graphics display controllers provide multiple layers, special line-drawing functions, numerous windows with resizing and transparency for overlapping and video input.

"The Mobile Media Processor combines Fujitsu's proven graphics processing with MPEG-4 and JPEG hardware compression in a single chip, enabling high-quality images to be delivered to small-form-factor displays," said Takeshi Fuse, FME's Business Unit Director for Mobile. "Our MMPs now meet the complex and intensive processing required for video and graphics in mobile products, with a minimum of power."

Rapid, Reliable Operation
When mounted in a 3G mobile phone, the MMP captures images through one of the two camera ports and then compresses the images using JPEG for still shots, or MPEG-4 for moving pictures. The processor will also render 2D graphics for maps, or 3D graphics for games and other forms of animation. The MMP incorporates two LCD interfaces, so images can be displayed on either one or two LCD screens.

To ensure that all these functions perform optimally and do not interfere with each other, Fujitsu provides OS-independent driver software equipped with host processor support code. The software performs power-management operations by monitoring I/O and macro block activity, and determines when to throttle the various clock domains up or down. The optimised driver tools significantly reduce development time and increase device efficiency.

Availability
The MMPs support a pair of camera devices. Built using Fujitsu's low-leakage 0.18-micron CMOS process, they are housed in 289-pin FBGA packages. The MB86V00 device incorporates 64Mbits of SDRAM as a system-in-package, and mass production of both MB86V00 and MB86V01 will start in September.

TODAY'S PRESS RELEASES
All Material Subject to Copyright. All logos, graphics and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Home ProZone Subscribe To Newsletter 3G Forum