Falanx Microsystems Announces Video-Optimized IP Cores for Handheld Semiconductor Design

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Falanx Microsystems, Inc., the developer of complete graphics intellectual property (IP) cores for system- on-chip (SoC) semiconductor manufacturers, today announced an addition to its Mali(TM) line of smart pixel processing cores. The Mali Video Series Configuration addresses the needs of mobile phone and handheld device manufacturers who want immediate access to high frame rate video capture and playback at a competitive price, but also want the option to include rich 3D gaming capabilities in future models.

"The Mali Video Series cores provide the clarity and frame rate required to make video a must-have handheld consumer feature, rather than a novelty add-on," said Borgar Ljosland, president and CEO of Falanx. "Mali technology has been known for its ability to create more immersive 3D gaming with its superior anti-aliasing technique, and we've done the same thing for video by raising the bar to include H.264 encode and decode of up to 30fps."

The quality delivered by the Mali video cores enable wireless providers to offer new video services for business users, such as live news updates, speech broadcasts, or permission marketing. The possibilities for personal applications are equally compelling, allowing users to exchange personal video greetings, check on the babysitter or even watch live or pre-recorded television and movies while waiting to meet a friend. By enabling these applications, the Mali Video Series has the ability to help stimulate sales of handsets and other video-equipped mobile devices.

"Today's consumers are open to new and exciting ways to enjoy and experience video, but they expect to see a minimum frame rate of 30fps playback like they see on TV," said Dr. Jon Peddie, of the market research firm Jon Peddie Research, in Tiburon, CA. "Products such as the Falanx Mali Video Series are representative of this exciting time for the handheld video market, where new video applications are being explored for integration into people's daily lives."

The Mali Video Advantage

Conventional approaches to video for mobile devices have proved too taxing to the main CPU to provide the video quality that consumers expect. With the Mali video series, the latest video codecs such as MPEG-4 with the H.264/AVC standard are offloaded from the main CPU and processed independently. Similarly, 3D graphics requires hardware acceleration, which creates a dilemma for handset manufacturers trying to anticipate the future direction of consumer demand for mobile features.

With the limited real estate and power consumption requirements of handheld devices, it is expensive and impractical to include separate hardware acceleration for individual features or to totally redesign a handset during each product design cycle. The Mali Video Series is the solution, offering impeccable video quality with low power consumption, along with the possibility to add advanced 3D graphics without redesign via a simple software upgrade.

The Mali Video Series is made up of the three pixel processing cores -- Mali 110V and Mali55V and a geometry processing core, the Mali GP-V. Working along side the ARM core, the Mali pixel processors accelerate video encoding and decoding up to 30 frames per second and handle motion estimation, motion compensation, video scaling, image differencing and color-space conversion tasks.

As with all Falanx graphics accelerator cores, the Mali cores include a complete out of the box software stack that is pre-verified to support, e.g. OpenGL® ES and Microsoft® Direct3D® Mobile, together with a performance analysis tool, for even quicker time to market and improved decision qualities for SoC integrators.

Falanx will be demonstrating the Mali video series in booth number 1854 at Siggraph 2005, the 32nd International Conference on Computer Graphics & Interactive Techniques, being held 31 July to 4 August 2005 in Los Angeles, California.

About Falanx Microsystems (www.falanx.com)

Falanx Microsystems develops graphics accelerator IP cores, marketed to semiconductor system-on-chip (SoC) vendors, that deliver high quality multimedia images without compromising performance, power consumption and system cost. Unlike most graphics IP cores, Falanx's Mali Graphics Core is designed from the ground-up for mobile applications such as cell phones, PDAs and portable game platforms, and is the only all-in-one solution offering a complete integration of 2D, 3D and video, plus software and interoperability drivers. Falanx is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway with offices in California and New Hampshire, and is privately-held.

Source: Falanx Microsystems, Inc.