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C-Cube SOC designed for set-top box
AViA-9600 promises enhanced graphics, time shift
· sampling now; production planned for Q1 2000
C-Cube Microsystems Inc. (Milpitas, CA) has developed a new SOC designed to provide digital time shifting, connectivity and enhanced content display in set-top boxes. The AViA-9600 integrates multiple dedicated processing units, which includes the CPU, A/V decoder, audio DSP, and graphics Processor. The new chip features a SPARC processor and four other embedded RISC processors. The manufacturer reports that samples of the AViA-9600 will be available in Q4 and production volume in Q1 2001. The AViA-9600 in 308-BGA packaging is priced at $22 when ordered in volume
The embedded microSparc V8 CPU is integrated into the AViA-9600. The design allows the CPU to be used as the system host in low-end systems and in high-end systems the CPU can function as a coprocessor.
Recently, C-Cube has gone through a number of changes and now the company is concentrating on pushing forward their development and marketing plans in three areas: DVD, set-top box and codecs. (See TPR, August 21, 2000, page 1280.)
C-Cube would like to make its AViA-9600 an integral part of a versatile set-top platform that can tackle a range of applications in broadband networks like cable, satellite and terrestrial. The AViA-9600 supports worldwide network deployments with a programmable architecture offering DVB and DES support, and the ability to handle MPEG, DVD and DSS formats. The audio DSP is engineered to create a complete home theatre experience by processing multiple audio formats including MP3, MPEG-2, Dolby Digital, and DTS, says the Milpitas, California manufacturer.
According to C-Cube, the AViA-9600 features a new graphics engine. With the set-top box becoming the focal point of family entertainment, C-Cube foresees a growing demand for electronic programming guides and content display. The AViA-9000 graphics subsystem includes a Display List Processor architecture, which offers windows management capabilities. The processor executes the display list in SDRAM. A special program provides a sequence of instructions for drawing the display. In addition, the graphics subsystem provides two reloadable color look-up tables (CLUT's), which together with the display list architecture provide the flexibility to support an arbitrary number of overlapping regions and planes, constrained only by SDRAM bandwidth and clock speed.
Major features of the graphics subsystem include:
Multiple overlapping regions with independent resolution, pixel coding method and CLUT
Two 256x2 dynamically reloadable CLUTS
Anti-flicker filter
Square Pixel support
Overlay and continuous scaling for both analog and digital video channels
Multiple color modes
Color Expansion Accelerator
Copy engine for fast rendering of rectangles and bitmaps, memory-to-memory copy, composition and scrolling
Overlay of high resolution, multi-color hardware cursor
Video and graphics mixing with alpha blending.
CCIR-656 video in/out port for direct video input or DENC bypass
Real-time decimation for video capture
Closed caption and teletext pass through
AViA-9600 features an integrated 150-MHz RISC CPU that acts as host and supports applications including digital time shifting and soft modem. It also provides IEEE1394 and USB controllers to connect to digital cameras and camcorders as well as external hard drives, DTVs, printers for viewing editing or transmitting personal content on the TV or through the broadband network. Direct connection to the hard drives, enabling time shifting and data broadcasting applications are provided through an IDE controller.
The AViA-9600 family of processors is designed specifically for STB applications, which offer hard disk drive time-shifting and Web access.
The single chip digital processor features:
MPEG-2 transport demultiplexer
DVB and DES descramblers
MPEG-2 video and audio decoders
Dolby digital AC-3 audio decoder
Advanced graphics display list processor
150 MHz Sparc CPU with 32KB cache
Unified Memory Architecture
Multiple host interface modes
PCI synchronous (master, slave)
68K-style asynchronous (master, slave)
Coldfire/PowerPC synchronous (slave)
Hitachi SH4 synchronous (slave)
Synchronous/asynchronous Flash support
IDE/ATAPI disk drive interface (master)
OpenCable POD, DVB-CI, or NRSS-B card interface (master)
Interface for two SmartCards
IEEE 1394, USB host, IDC, IEEE 1284 Peripheral, Modem DAA, UART, infrared, SPI, and GPIO interfaces
Digital video encoder (DENC)
Digital video capture and output
Anticipating an increased demand for time shifting and personal video recording, C-Cube designers integrated an ATA/IDE controller to connect to disk drives. Copy protection is also included in the AviA-9600 via 5C copy protection circuitry for security over IEEE-1394, and CPRM-based (Content Protection for Recordable Media) encryption for copy protection of content on the hard disk drive. Additionally, the AViA-9600 MPEG decode engine is equipped with trick play modes to allow the consumer to pause, review, and fast forward recorded video. (408.490.8561, www.c-cube.com/products.cfm)
Editors comments:
C-Cube is joining other chip makers in developing a series of SOCs geared to captivate makers of set-top boxes by offering a chip that can do just about anything. These chips promise to display TV programs and games on screen, script an interactive dialog between the viewer and the e-commerce site that is just waiting to take the consumers money and keep track of programming tastes and the possibilities for the viewer and content provider.
Service providers who are hot to develop brand recognition at as little cost as possible are going to be attracted to integration. C-Cube has been providing chips for set-top boxes for some time, but the new highly integrated chip is a substantial step forward for them, something like switching gears from making stick shifts in cars and building automatic transmissions. Was it a good move? Well how many people drive sticks or even know how, accept for sports car enthusiasts, who in the end represent only a fraction of the market. Automatic transmissions sold cars, drop down menus helped sell computers, the SOC is speeding up the attraction to set-top as a way through to the Internet and around the traditional computer-GF |
