SANYO Electric Adopts Xilinx Extended Spartan-3A Family in Next-Generation Surveillance Cameras

Integrated DSP functionality helps achieve wide dynamic range for image-processing engine, while reducing time to market and costs

TOKYO -- Dec. 15, 2008 -- Xilinx K.K. (Art Village Osaki Central Tower 4F, 1-2-2 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; president Sam Rogan), the Japanese arm of the programmable logic solutions leader Xilinx, Inc., announced today that SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. (2-5-5 Keihanhondori, Moriguchi-shi, Osaka; president Seiichiro Sano; Securities Identification Code: 6764; hereafter "SANYO Electric") has adopted the low-cost Xilinx(R) extended Spartan(R)-3A family for SANYO'S VCC-WD390 next-generation wide dynamic range surveillance cameras. Leveraging the Spartan-3A DSP device, SANYO Electric implemented an image-processing engine featuring proprietary high-performance algorithms, meeting demanding time-to-market and development cost requirements.

In addition to providing finely-tuned image sensing and high resolution imaging, surveillance cameras now must offer wide dynamic range capabilities to clearly capture images in both dark indoor and bright outdoor settings. SANYO Electric's next-generation wide dynamic range VCC-WD390 surveillance camera is designed with such flexibility in mind. With a wide dynamic range CMOS image sensor to provide high-quality images, exceeding charge coupled devices (CCDs), and a proprietary image processing engine, the surveillance cameras are capable of rendering images even closer to the human eye. These cameras debuted September 15 at the American Society for Industrial Security Show 2008 (ASIS 2008) in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Spartan-3A DSP FPGA family provided the functionality and performance required for the next-generation wide dynamic range capabilities offered by the VCC-WD390 surveillance camera. The device's dedicated DSP blocks deliver an average of 70 percent logic efficiency over a gates-plus-multipliers implementation, and functionality that enables ASIC-equivalent performance without requiring an additional co-processor chip. With Spartan-3A DSP FPGAs, SANYO Electric was able to develop original image processing engines with even more cutting-edge algorithms in less time and at lower costs.

Shigekazu Morikawa, a design manager in Digital System Company's DI Division in SANYO Electric, comments, "With advances in quality and performances of surveillance cameras, people are becoming particularly interested in wide dynamic range capabilities. These next-generation wide dynamic range surveillance cameras that we've developed are strategic products that meet these types of market demands. The revolutionary sensors that secure wide dynamic ranges and the newly developed image-processing engine are the keys to product realization. Adopting the Xilinx extended Spartan-3A family of FPGAs to this engine and basing it on our company's image processing technology and know-how cultivated through the years, we were able to achieve a high-performance image processing engine employing the latest algorithms in a short period of time while keeping down development costs. The timely release of new products to the market is more important now than ever. We believe there will be an even greater increase in demand of FPGAs that can meet these needs in the future."

About Xilinx Extended Spartan Family

The extended Spartan-3A family of FPGAs solves the design challenges in many high-volume, cost-sensitive electronic applications. With devices ranging from 50,000 to 3.4 million system gates, this FPGA family provides a broad range of options including a non-volatile single chip option, and integrated DSP MACs with the lowest total system cost. The family offers power management features to enable designers to drive down system costs by minimizing board components and providing low-cost complex computation and embedded processing capabilities. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com/spartan.

About SANYO

For detailed information about SANYO Electric Co., Ltd., please visit SANYO's web site at http://www.sanyo.com.

About Xilinx

Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.