Hi all; Analysis of Panasonic's RDRAM usage. This is about the Rambus fantasy belief that HDTV is about to haul Rambus' nuts out of the fire, or even that Panasonic's use of RDRAM is an indication that the technology is going to survive:
RDRAM-based High Definition TVs and Set-Top Boxes Shipping
Rambus Inc. (Nasdaq:RMBS) today announced that leading Japanese consumer product manufacturers have started shipping High Definition Televisions (HDTV) and digital satellite broadcast Set-Top Boxes (STB) in time for the broadcasting of the Sydney Olympic Games. Using one to two RDRAM(R) devices, for 1.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth, the Rambus(R) solution provides high-speed data transfer rates together with the lowest granularity memory subsystem.
Panasonic started shipping several models of HDTVs and high definition digital satellite broadcast set-top boxes. They incorporate a state-of-the-art MPEG2 decoder developed by Matsushita and use Rambus 128Mb RDRAM for high speed decoding memory.
Sony also announced a set-top box for high definition digital satellite broadcast. These systems incorporate a state-of-the-art MPEG2 decoder, jointly developed with NEC, and use Rambus 128Mb RDRAM to achieve 1.6GB/sec data rate for high quality digital imaging.
Other HDTV sets, set-top boxes and digital video players will be introduced for the 2000 Holiday Season, and because the Rambus solution is the most cost effective memory solution, RDRAMs are incorporated in most of these new models to achieve the required high quality digital imaging.
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rambusite.com
Okay. Two companies are listed as having RDRAM based digital TV, MPEG2, HDTV, or set top boxes in the above PR. They are Panasonic and Sony. Lets do Panasonic first, I'll take care of Sony later. Panasonic, is of course, the US name for Matsushita:
panasonic.com
The paragraph reads as follows: "Panasonic started shipping several models of HDTVs and high definition digital satellite broadcast set-top boxes. They incorporate a state-of-the-art MPEG2 decoder developed by Matsushita and use Rambus 128Mb RDRAM for high speed decoding memory."
First of all, we know that when Rambus says "shipping" they really mean sampling, or even prototyping. Heck, they've announced Micron's volume shipping of RDRAM several times already, LOL. Anyway, compare the above quote to these two pages, both straight from the Panasonic web site:
Matsushita Develops Single-Chip MPEG2 Video Encoder LSI For Portable Consumer-Use Multimedia Product
Press Release, Panasonic / Matsushita, February 5, 1998
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (MEI) (NYSE: MC), Matsushita Research Institute Tokyo, and Matsushita Electronics Corporation, best known for their Panasonic brand products, have jointly developed a single-chip MPEG2 video encoder LSI which is suitable for future multimedia products such as MPEG2 digital video camcorders, DVD video recorders, and advanced multimedia PCs.
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All MPEG2 encoding can be processed with this LSI and two 16Mbit SDRAM[6].
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panasonic.com
32-bit Microprocessor MN103E010H
Panasonic website, April 10, 2001
Overview
MN103E010H is a high performance general-purpose 32-bit microprocessor, which integrates Matsushita-original architecture AM33 CPU core.
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* Applications: Digital TV, Set-Top-Box, ITS, PDA, Internet Devices
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Memory bus I/F: 16-bit, glue - less SDRAM interface
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panasonic.co.jp
I can't find any links to RDRAM on the panasonic web site in Japan (See mei.co.jp ) except for the following obsolete digital TV tuner, which used six 16Mbit RDRAM chips that are not even made anymore. You want to know about them? Read here:
panasonic.co.jp
maco.panasonic.co.jp
Searching for "Rambus" instead of "RDRAM" on the Panasonic site gave links to the licensing agreement with Rambus and a couple pages with (obsolete) RDRAM based graphics cards for sale:
panasonic.co.jp
panasonic.co.jp
Searching in EE-Times for various combinations of {HDTV, MPEG2, Matsushita, Panasonic} came up with no RDRAM hits, but I did get this little winner:
Mitsubishi unveils single-chip MPEG-2 encoder
EE-Times, May 11, 2001
Mitsubishi Electric Co. has developed a single-chip MPEG-2 encoder with 64 Mbits of embedded DRAM that will enable PC Card-sized HDTV video codecs. The company called its 10.71 x 9.26-mm chip, which was described at this week's Custom Integrated Circuits Conference in San Diego, the world's smallest MPEG-2 encoder.
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Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. contributed to the encoder's development. In March, Mitsubishi and Matsushita prototyped a low-power, high-density embedded DRAM technology that could be scaled to a 64-Mbit density on a 10-mm square chip with 10 million gates of logic. The single-chip MPEG-2 encoder is aimed at handheld devices such as MD camcorders, DVD camcorders and HDD recorders, the companies said.
eetimes.com
And a link which led to this one:
Matsushita MPEG-4 chip encodes/decodes multiple objects
Junko, Yoshida, EE-Times, February 7, 2001
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. unveiled at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference this week what it called the world's first dedicated MPEG-4 chip capable of encoding and decoding multiple objects of arbitrary shapes.
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Scheduled for sampling in the second quarter, the chip is targeted at both cell phones and PDAs, said Takashi Hashimoto, an engineer at Matsushita's System LSI Development Center. Matsushita, a leading cell phone supplier for NTT Docomo in Japan, hopes the new chip will help Docomo energize MPEG-4-based multimedia applications, starting this spring in Japan's wideband CDMA services.
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With 20 Mbits of embedded DRAM, the chip integrates a proprietary DSP core, eight dedicated hardware engines, and three interface units, including a video processing unit, a memory interface and a host interface. "This is a hybrid architecture consisting of a programmable DSP and dedicated hardware engines to meet the demands for a lower power and higher performance MPEG-4 solution," Hashimoto said.
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The low-power consumption is an absolute requirement to get the chip designed into a cell phone, Hashimoto said. "We reduced the chip's power consumption for external I/O circuits by employing an embedded DRAM, while we also incorporated clock gating features in each block to cut the chip's internal power consumption," he said.
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eet.com
It sure looks like Matsushita isn't working terribly hard at finding a reason to use RDRAM in HDTV, Set top boxes or MPEG2 decoding. And the above article is proof positive that they don't need RDRAM for MPEG4.
Say goodbye to the Panasonic design win story, it was all a figment of Rambus' greedy, fraudulent, and fevered imagination. This is typical of the Rambus technique, a technique which is not only followed by the company, but is also adhered to by their silly investors: Make mountains out of mole hills.
The post that inspired this particular scavenger hunt is this post on TMF:
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There will be a huge flurry (IMHO) of settop boxes in the next 2-3 years, and it's to Rambus' credit that Panasonic is using RDRAM as Panasonic is the premiere chipset (by far) for signal translation.
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boards.fool.com
I admit that HDTV is out of my department, but I'm very good at finding links, and I just can't find the links that connect Panasonic up with Direct RDRAM.
-- Carl
P.S. The above link brings up the matter of microcomputers. Do any of Panasonics microcomputers use RDRAM? Answer: No:
semicon.panasonic.co.jp |
