Silicon Hive announces new image signal processor

Silicon Hive announces immediate availability of its HiveFlex Moustique-IC2 processor core to enable highest quality images on camera phones.

Eindhoven, the Netherlands - May 16, 2006. Silicon Hive today announced at the Spring Processor Forum in San Jose, California, immediate availability of the HiveFlex Moustique-IC2 processor.

The HiveFlex Moustique-IC2 processor is designed to run high quality image processing algorithms to bring digital still camera image quality to camera phones. CMOS image sensor IC companies, applications processing SoC makers and ISP companion chip manufacturers can now bring their products to market quickly, with the possibility of incorporating either their own or even 3rd party algorithms in software.

The HiveFlex Moustique-IC2 processor is available for licensing today and is delivered as a synthesizable soft IP core with an I/O subsystem for easy integration. The processor is available in configurations ranging from 4-way to 128-way SIMD processing to address low-cost to high-performance implementations. The HiveGates Camera is also available today. This real-time prototyping and development system includes the HiveFlex Moustique-IC2 processor, and enables immediate development and evaluation of high quality image processing algorithms in a complete system.



the HiveGates Camera prototyping and development system

Max Baron, Principal Analyst & Senior Editor, Microprocessor Report, In-Stat said “Silicon Hive's approach of tuning architectures to specific applications competes with processors and hardware accelerators in delivering high quality camera phone images by offering low power consumption and full software programmability".

“The scalable vector parallelism of HiveFlex Moustique-IC2 coupled with the power of the HiveCC ANSI-C compiler enables competitive software-defined image signal processing in cameras,” said Jeroen Leijten, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Silicon Hive. ”It is now possible to address different sensor types, resolutions, and generations as well as apply different image signal processing chains without the need for costly and time consuming hardware design cycles. Software programmability will provide all industry players with new ways to differentiate products and shorten time to market."

The HiveFlex Moustique-IC2 processor is a second generation Moustique-IC processor, and succeeds the HiveFlex Moustique-IC1 processor. It is based upon Silicon Hive's award winning processor and compiler technology and combines VLIW and SIMD architectural elements into a very high performance system while retaining the low power and small die size attributes that are required for mobile phone products.

HiveFlex Moustique-IC2 processor highlights:

• 5-issue VLIW architecture
• Scalable from 4-way to 128-way SIMD processing
• Executes up to 4 SIMD operations in parallel
• Typical operating frequency of 200MHz
• Instruction set optimized for image processing
• Configurable program memory and data memory sizes
• Accompanied by an I/O subsystem facilitating the integration into a SoC

Availability

The HiveFlex Moustique-IC2 processor is available for licensing today. It is delivered as a synthesizable soft IP core, with support for synthesis, characterization, test-vectors and test logic insertion. The processor is supported by Silicon Hive's Software Development Tools including the HiveCC compiler, the HiveGates Hardware Emulation System, and the HiveGates Camera prototyping and development system.

About Silicon Hive

Silicon Hive is a worldwide supplier of semiconductor intellectual property. The company designs, builds and licenses application-specific solutions for communications and media processing; tuned processor cores; and program development tools with application libraries. Silicon Hive products enable semiconductor companies to make fully programmable System-on-Chips (SoCs). The patented technology has been matured over a 10-year period at Philips Research. Silicon Hive belongs to the portfolio of the Philips Technology Incubator and is a fully owned business of Royal Philips Electronics. More information on Silicon Hive is available at www.siliconhive.com