NXP chip promises 'exceptional viewing experience' in mobiles

NXP Semiconductors has announced the PNX4150, its "exceptional viewing experience" companion chip that promises to bring image improvement techniques to mobile picture and video applications.

Sharp, realistic images
The solution enables sharp images, vivid and realistic colors, natural detail, smooth motion and enhanced contrast on mobile handset and personal media player displays. Moreover, Adaptive Backlight Control allows these features to be enjoyed with 40 percent lower power consumption by the display, resulting in significantly longer battery life and further enhancing consumer uptake of robust entertainment applications on mobile devices.

At the heart of the PNX4150 companion chip are NXP's patented Mobile Pixel Plus and Mobile Natural Motion video-processing algorithms implemented in hardware. Along with Adaptive Backlight Control, additional display-processing algorithms, including Adaptive Color Gamut Mapper; Adaptive Contrast Booster and Advanced Frame Mixer, round out the chip's picture-enhancing and power-saving feature set. Because the video- and display-processing algorithms are implemented in hardware, they require less power than software equivalents.

Lower system cost
For lower overall cost, the small, highly efficient PNX4150 companion chip sits between any baseband/application processor and cost-effective RAM-less display. It accepts streaming video with input resolution up to QVGA, and can optionally up-sample the video to accommodate the full display size (for certain cases up to WVGA).

The PNX4150 companion chip will begin sampling Q2 2007.