DxO Labs Announces Immediate Availability of DxO IPE, the Industry's First Embedded Image Processing Solution (ISP) for Camera Phones with Built-in Enhanced Depth of Field (EDOF) and Optical Fault Correction

Available as Silicon IP, DxO IPE solution leverages new generation DxO programmable and configurable SIMD RTL core optimized for on-the-fly image processing.

Paris, France & Mountain View, California -- December 3, 2007 -- DxO Labs announced today the availability of three new embedded image processing solutions specifically designed for camera phone applications and available as silicon IP licensed to silicon vendors. These new solutions help mobile phone designers overcome the limitations of ever shrinking pixels used in high resolution, small form factor camera modules. This is accomplished by merging the best digital optics technology, also known as enhanced depth of field or EDoF, with industry-best image processing technology, including anti-aliasing demosaicing, sensor and pixel level noise compensation and DSC-class auto exposure and auto white balance.

The three new offerings are the DxO IPE, DxO ISP and DxO DOP families of solutions. The DxO IPE family of solutions combines the newest digital optics technology which supports low light lens designs, enhanced depth-of-field designs and low profile lens designs with DSC-class image signal processing for the best overall low light imaging performance available. The DxO ISP family provides DSC-class image processing without the digital optics implementation; and the DxO DOP family provides the digital optics processing without the image processing functions.

All of the solutions are implemented using DxO’s proprietary, highly configurable and programmable SIMD processor core and are extremely power, space and form factor efficient. Due to the flexibility of the architecture, the solutions are available in several configurations to support resolution from 1.3MP to 12MP.

The solutions are available to be embedded on CMOS imaging sensor chips, on companion chips inside camera modules, or on baseband or application processor chips.

“Despite the performance limitations of today’s ever shrinking pixels, we believe that with the application of DxO imaging technologies in embedded platforms such as camera phones, image quality equivalent to that of digital still cameras can be achieved,” said Jerome Meniere, CEO of DxO Labs. “Through our investment in building RTL and silicon design capabilities within DxO, we are now able to offer these technologies to customers seeking to embed them in CMOS image sensors, multi-media processors and other SoCs in a complete, proven RTL solution for easy integration and rapid time-to-market.”

With the purchase of a license and royalty contract, DxO Labs will deliver the following:

• A system level, bit-accurate C model for the RTL and microcode;
• A hardware integration guide including external interfaces (hardware I/F, timing, registers & memories);
• Configured RTL (obfuscated structural Verilog) with 100% coverage;
• Verification coverage and guidelines (including documentation, verification vectors and tools for integration);
• Recommended chip test methodology;
• A software integration guide including Microcontroller firmware and library description;
• Microcontroller firmware and library;
• One lens design which when mated to the system hardware meets the optical system specifications (for DxO DOP and DxO IPE families only);
• Support for chip specification, RTL integration and verification, firmware integration and verification, chip backend, system level verification, lens sample manufacturing and verification, chip verification and image quality tuning;
• Upon receipt of first samples, DxO Labs will also performance a lens and sensor system calibration. This calibration testing results in the creation of additional binaries (codes and data) for ROM or RAM integration for the final camera module using the mated lens.

The solutions are available for immediate integration into customer chip designs. More information on the solutions can be found at www.dxo.com/intl/embedded_imaging .

About DxO Labs

DxO Labs offers products and solutions ensuring excellence in digital imaging. DxO Labs develops and licenses intellectual property serving the entire digital imaging chain: licensing silicon architectures for embedded still and video image processing; image quality evaluation and measurement tools and methodologies; image quality enhancement software for consumers. The company’s key customers and partners include:

• Consumer electronics manufacturers such as digital camera vendors and camera phone vendors;
• Imaging components suppliers: camera module manufacturers, sensor vendors, and processor vendors;
• Demanding photographers, as well as photography journalists and imaging experts.

DxO Labs’ product portfolio is steadily finding a place at the heart of advanced consumer electronics and world-class industry imaging systems where “Image Science by DxO” becomes a reference for quality.

For more information on the company, visit DxO Labs online at www.dxo.com