German startup develops multimedia processor

A German university spin-off company has developed a parallel processing core for multimedia applications called the HiBRID-SoC. The device has been developed for flexibility and programmability in meeting multiple multimedia compression standards.

Videantis GmbH (Hannover, Germany), a spin-off from the Institute of Microelectronic Systems and of the Information Technology Laboratory, University of Hannover, develops processor cores and application libraries and has applied its technology to real-time object-tracking in surveillance systems.

On its website the company argued that while in the past dedicated solutions for a single multimedia standard or compression scheme had often been sufficient, the ability to support a wide range of existing and emerging standards has become a major criteria for the successful market introduction of devices. Multimedia system integrators are increasingly faced with tightening constraints on performance, power consumption, and on the multitude of schemes and standards that a system has to handle, the website said.

According to a Videantis white paper, the HiBRID-SoC is a multi-core system-on-chip for multimedia signal processing that comprises three cores: A 16-datapath SIMD core with a two-dimensional matrix memory for image processing, a 64bit VLIW processor with subword parallelism for block-based video coding, and a 32bit scalar RISC core for bitstream processing and system control.

The company did not discuss in the paper whether the RISC is home-grown or licensed. When implemented in a six-layer metal 0.18?m CMOS process the HiBRID SoC occupies 81 square millimeters and can operate at 7-GOPS at a clock frequency of 145MHz.

The software library contains a wide range of target applications, including various versions of MPEG-4 and H.264/AVC.

- Peter Clarke

EE Times