Semiconductor solutions aid security

Analog Devices is showcasing technologies that enable advances in safety and security systems at this week's International Fire and Security Exhibition and Conference in Birmingham.

Analog Devices is showcasing technologies that enable advances in safety and security systems at this week's International Fire and Security Exhibition and Conference (IFSEC) in Birmingham.

The security industry's premier event features ADI's latest chips for security camera innovations, including broadband-based solutions like video-over-Ethernet cameras that provide full-colour, full-motion, real-time digital image compression for IP-based remote surveillance networks.

ADI is also demonstrating new digital imaging chip technologies that for the first time are driving fingerprint recognition systems into consumer electronics and other cost-conscious mass markets.

"Government, university, and commercial research into visual signal processing technologies is proceeding at an aggressive pace.

At ADI, we now have two engineering design centres fully devoted to image processing applications and numerous centres around the world providing research to varying degrees", said Bill Bucklen, Product Line Director, Analog Devices.

"At the current pace of development, in the not too distant future, we envision fingerprint sensors used to access cars, computers and homes".

At IFSEC, Analog Devices is demonstrating its commitment to the rapidly growing biometrics industry by showcasing a fingerprint recognition system based on the Blackfin processor and AuthenTec TruePrint sensor.

AuthenTec is the leading semiconductor provider of fingerprint sensors to the PC, wireless, and PDA, access control and automotive markets and has designed the Blackfin into its FingerLoc AFS8600 Embedded Developer's Kit.

The TruePrint sensor captures a fingerprint image within a fraction of a second, and the Blackfin processor meets the demanding signal processing requirements of AuthenTec's AFS8600 EDK for fingerprint matching subsystems.

The combination of the TruePrint sensor and Blackfin processor enables AuthenTec to drive security features such as fingerprint recognition into the consumer electronics and other markets that previously could not afford to offer advanced biometric sensing.

The AFS8600 EDK is an embedded developer's kit for fingerprint sensor matching subsystems that are sold to manufacturers who design these subsystems into their own products.

The EDK consists of AuthenTec's silicon-based sensor (ie an image processing chip); a database of fingerprint matching software; the Blackfin processor, which performs all the memory caching and computation; and documentation and support.

Also at IFSEC, Analog Devices is demonstrating its ability to support flexible, lower cost, easier to build closed-circuit television (CCTV) networks using video-over-Ethernet (VOE) technology and the industry's JPEG2000 image compression standard.

VOE is designed to displace coaxial cable-based CCTV by allowing end users to build an entire complex of security cameras that runs over an existing Ethernet computer network.

Analog Devices' ADV202 JPEG2000 codec enables the adoption of VOE networks as the industry's only codec that provides real-time JPEG2000 compression and decompression of both standard- and high-definition video signals.

Unlike older DCT-based (discrete cosine transform) compression algorithms, the ADV202 codec's support of JPEG2000 enables the resolution and quality level of compressed images to be scaled without any transcoding, allowing CCTV operators to display varying video quality levels and video frame rates from the same JPEG2000 code stream, thus supporting simultaneous display of video on a CRT monitor, laptop, or handheld device.

Analog Devices is additionally showcasing its Blackfin Bravo network camera chipset and reference design, which provide the core components necessary to build a full-colour, full-motion (up to 30-frames-per-second) VOE network camera.

The Blackfin Bravo NetCam reference design comes complete with an embedded web (http) server that allows users to remotely access, control, and view live, full-motion video from anywhere in the world via any personal computer or other device that has a standard Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape browser.

An embedded streaming server provides live streaming audio and video and is compatible with players such as QuickTime.

The design supports video input from any standard NTSC/Pal analogue camera or CMOS sensor.

The Bravo chipset is based on Analog Devices' high-performance Blackfin processor and provides a lower-cost alternative to competing camera designs that must use both a microprocessor and fixed-function ASIC.

Additionally, the Bravo chipset's software reprogrammable architecture supports multiple compression standards, such as JPEG, MJPEG, MPEG-4 and H.264 (future), and can be remotely upgraded to add or enhance camera features.

The reference design includes the Bravo chipset and all hardware and software documentation, schematics, Gerber files, and other data needed to build a fully functional network camera, while Analog Devices offers full hardware, software and system support.

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