Imagination Technologies' Multi-Standard Receiver IP CORE Family Extends Support to 1SEG, 3SEG and Full-SEG ISDB-T

Low-power licensable solution offers best balance of functionality, performance & size

Tokyo, Japan -- 1st November 2007: Imagination Technologies, a leader in system-on-chip Intellectual Property (SoC IP), announced today that it has added wide support for the Japanese ISDB-T digital TV and radio standards to its licensable receiver IP core family.

ISDB-T (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial) is the digital TV and radio format created to allow Japanese radio and television stations to convert to digital. It has also been adopted in parts of South America. Imagination’s new UCC230 core supports ISDB-T 1seg for mobile TV, 3seg for digital radio and 13segment (full-seg) for HD digital TV.

Says David McBrien, VP of sales & business development, Imagination Technologies: “With ‘free-to-air' broadcasting, the Japanese and Korean mobile TV markets are currently leading the world. Through the addition of this support for ISDB-T we now support the key digital mobile TV and radio standards used in Asia – T-DMB, which is proving very successful in Korea and has been implemented in parts of China, and ISDB-T in Japan. As further standards become dominant in China we expect to fully support those too.

The ENSIGMA UCC230 supports the widest range of standards available on a single receiver platform, including: DVB-H; DVB-T; 1seg, 3seg and 13 segment (full-seg) ISDB-T; DAB; Enhanced Packet Mode DAB; DAB-IP; T-DMB; and FM radio. Support for other regional standards is also in advanced development. UCC230 enables seamless switching between modes – microcode swaps are concealed during the brief channel change duration.

The ENSIGMA UCC230 multi-standard receiver IP core enables devices to provide multiple-standard support in the same country and roam between countries with different standards – all in the same area as typical single standard solutions. By supporting multiple standards on the same IP core Imagination’s licensing partners are significantly reducing the total cost of ownership for global mobile TV technology.

Imagination is demonstrating its multi-standard mobile TV platform at Embedded Technology 2007 from November 14-17 in Yokohama, Japan.

Already deployed in high-volume handsets in Asia and Europe, Imagination Technologies’ receiver IP has been licensed by several semiconductor partners including Mavrix, Future Waves, Frontier Silicon and Sharp.

Continues McBrien: “Imagination is delivering leading performance in the smallest die size. We’ve challenged any fixed function design to match the efficiency of our multi-standard solution: no one has come forward.

The ENSIGMA UCC230 IP core is unique in enabling multiple mobile TV – as well as terrestrial digital and analogue TV and radio – reception standards on a single device whilst delivering exceptionally low power dissipation. It provides the foundation of a highly-integrated mobile TV solution, reducing cost, design risk and time-to-market. Built around Imagination’s UCC (Universal Communications Core) signal processing engine, specifically developed for programmable PHY layer demodulation, the IP platform also integrates Imagination’s META MTX 32-bit embedded controller for real-time system housekeeping and low level driver abstraction to minimise host CPU overhead.

The UCC technology features a uniquely optimised balance of programmability and hardware configurability, yet occupies equivalent or less silicon area compared to hard-wired, single-standard DVB-H hardware demodulation solutions in the market, while at the same time providing the highest levels of performance in all critical areas including sensitivity, co-channel interference and Doppler. For example, UCC230 achieves 150 Hz of Doppler (DVB-H, 8 MHz, 8K FFT, ¼ Guard, 16QAM ½, f3dB) and requires only 6mW for 1-Seg ISDB-T demodulation.

The ENSIGMA UCC230 IP core delivers full baseband receiver functionality in a pre-verified subsystem and has been proven in successfully shipping silicon. The ability of the IP core to support all of the current key standards in mobile TV, and to add support for new standards in the future without adding silicon area, makes the platform the obvious choice for manufacturers wanting to reduce the number of different chips required to target the world mobile TV market, or enter new territories. The technology is ideal for implementation in mobile phones, PMPs, PNDs, in-car systems and other devices.

Supporting Technologies

Imagination Technologies also supplies the POWERVR VXD multi-standard hardware video decoder IP cores supporting a wide range of formats including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1/WMV9, H.263 and H.264, at resolutions up to dual stream HD, enabling high performance video at low CPU overhead. This IP core family enables DVD quality video at exceptionally low power consumption, making it the ideal choice for high volume mobile receivers.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc (FTSE:IMG) – a leader in semiconductor System on Chip Intellectual Property (SoC IP) – creates and licenses market-leading embedded graphics, video and display accelerators, multi-threaded processors and multi-standard receiver technologies. These IP solutions are complemented by dynamic and extensive developer and middleware ecosystems. Target markets include digital radio and audio; mobile phone multimedia; car navigation & driver information; personal navigation; UMPC and Mobile Internet Device (MID); digital TV & set top box; and mobile TV. Its licensees include leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies. Imagination has corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom, with sales and R&D offices worldwide. See: www.imgtec.com