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To: Stoctrash who wrote (36206)	9/24/1998 11:26:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

Siemens scan converter with embedded DRAM................... eet.com Siemens bases digital-TV converter on embedded DRAM By Junko Yoshida CUPERTINO, Calif. — In pursuit of the volume consumer digital TV market, Siemens Microelectronics Inc. has rolled out a scan rate conversion IC designed to convert NTSC interlaced images into progressive scan output. The chip, which is based on an embedded DRAM, is "critical for TV manufacturers who want to ensure that their mainstream, large-screen digital TV sets — besides offering digital SDTV and HDTV images — will continue to reproduce high quality analog NTSC pictures," said Michael McDonald, U.S. consumer marketing manager for Siemens Microelectronics, based here. Siemens is working on a variety of silicon solutions to help the digital HDTV market take off, said McDonald. The company's new SDA9400 scan-rate converter is "not a one-shot device," he said. "This will be followed by a series of other chips currently in development." The SDA9400 up-converts 525 interlaced NTSC pictures to 525 progressive pictures, offering a 31.5-kHz line frequency output. While doubling the lines to eliminate visible line structure on big screen televisions, the chip incorporates newly developed algorithms that minimize the loss of quality or vertical resolution — common artifacts often seen in current low-cost line-doubler solutions, McDonald said. By offering 31.4-kHz line frequency (as opposed to 15.75-kHz for NTSC), the Siemens converter lets TV system vendors design a large-screen digital TV without resorting to a costly multi-scan rate monitor. Such a variable scanning rate feature is available on computer displays with relatively small screens, but such a feature would be prohibitively costly and complex on a large-screen display due to the required deflection circuitry and scanning gun. Siemens' SDA9400 is aimed at first-generation digital TV designs that will display 1080i. "We are finding that most TV manufacturers today are building their digital TV capable of displaying 1080i," McDonald said. "They want to use a simpler deflection circuitry, designed to handle either a single or a very small range of frequencies." By providing 525 progressive pictures at a 31.5-kHz line frequency, "our chip is offering a frequency very similar to the HDTV display rates of 1080i [32.4 kHz]," he added. Gerry Kaufhold, principal analyst at In-Stat Inc., (Scottsdale, Ariz.) said that "presumably, every HDTV could ship with this new Siemens chip. "This chip doesn't displace HDTV circuitry, but it adds NTSC capability to digital TV while keeping the overall digital TV system cost down," Kaufhold said. The Siemens scan-rate converter is set apart by its integration, its proprietary algorithms and by its cost, McDonald said. Siemens engineers have built, for the first time, the scan-rate conversion IC onto an embedded DRAM. The 5.2 Mbits of memory on the chip reduces the total chip count by eliminating the need for a separate frame buffer within a system. Further, it helps lower costs because system vendors say it is becoming harder to find a smaller memory, McDonald said. While other chip vendors have talked about using embedded memory for this type of application, Siemens is the first to realize the goal, he said. "We've been making picture-in-picture ICs and some ASICs with embedded DRAM over four years now," said McDonald. "We think we've reached a point where we are comfortable in offering our customers cost effective embedded memory solutions." The SDA9400 leverages proprietary image-enhancing algorithms that Siemens jointly developed with the University of Dortmund and the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Germany. "Compared to other line-doubling solutions on the market, our chip — while repeating each line — neither defocuses images nor loses vertical resolution very much," said McDonald. In converting interlaced images to the progressive-scan mode, the Siemens chip actually implements pixel-by-pixel analysis to determine first whether there is motion, and if so, to then measure the amount of noise caused by that motion. The chip then applies an appropriate algorithm to eliminate the noise. The SDA9400 is not intended for applications in the high-end broadcast market, McDonald said. "Let's not kid ourselves. This is not designed for luxurious, professional line-doubler products like those by Faroudja," he said. Instead, Siemens wants "to deliver good quality up-converted 525 progressive pictures at a reasonable cost for a high volume consumer digital TV market," he said. The chip also features vertical and horizontal decimation capabilities to enable split-screen/double-window viewing, and has vertical interpolation to eliminate the black bars used in letterbox formatting. Samples of the SDA9400 are available today, with mass production slated for the first quarter of 1999. The chip is fabbed in Dresden, Germany using a 0.35-micron embedded DRAM process. Back-end production takes place at Siemens' plant in Singapore. The SDA9400 is priced at $40 each in 10,000-piece quantities.