Chip set permits upgrade to DVD
techweb.cmp.com
By Junko Yoshida
FREMONT, Calif. -- Leveraging its Far East presence in the video compact-disk market, ESS Technology Inc. has introduced a chip set that will enable manufacturers in Taiwan, Korea and China to upgrade their Video CD players to DVD players. The company's highly integrated, cost-effective, full DVD/set-top solution is composed of three chips.
The heart of the chip set is ESS's ES3308 dual-engine programmable multimedia processor, which integrates both a CPU and a 64-bit DSP video processor. The chip includes ESS's proprietary 32-bit RISC engine based on a MIPS X core, and provides MPEG-2/Dolby digital decoding. The CPU and the DSP run in lock step at 80 MHz, minimizing inner chip protocols. The 32-bit RISC core provides management functions, while the 64-bit DSP is dedicated to processing video image streams.
Functions of the programmable DSP include post processing filters, arbitrary video output scaling, video pan and scan, letter box, multiple aspect ratios and camera angles. The chip also provides 4-bit on-screen display and blending.
Accompanying the core engine are the ES3301 transport/decryption chip and the ES3207 D/A converter and NTSC/PAL encoder.
OEMs need only to add DRAM to the three-piece chip set for their DVD player board, said Giri Venkat, marketing manager, DVD set-top box at ESS. "No extra microcontroller nor drive interface chip is necessary," Venkat said.
"Our chip set is capable of actually decrypting a CSS [Content Scrambling System]-encrypted DVD disk on a player," said Venkat. Although many U.S. silicon vendors have announced their plans to obtain a CSS license, few aside from Toshiba and Matsushita have launched working CSS decryption chips, he said.
ESS is also making available a full DVD player reference design, complete with software drivers and a DVD board. The board measures just 6 x 6 inches. "It fits right on top of a DVD drive with only an eighth of an inch overhang," said Venkat. The already-miniaturized board would allow OEMs to manufacture the DVD board right away, he added.
The first-generation ESS DVD board supports 2 Mbytes of fast-page-mode DRAM and EDO DRAM, while the next-generation chip set will add support for SDRAM, according to Venkat.
The ESS chip set is backward compatible with VideoCD 2.0-- "a must feature in the Far East," Venkat said.
The combined price the for ES3308 MPEG-2/Dolby digital decoder and ESS3301 transport/decryption chip is $35. Venkat said that OEMs with an order of more than 100,000 sets could get "a significant reduction in price." The cost for the ES3207 D/A converter and TV encoder is $8. |
