Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: ATI Technologies | Subject: Xilleon 220
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 22 October 2001
Set-top-box chip integrates everything
but the box
ATI Technologies describes its Xilleon 220 as the fastest and most highly integrated SoC for the digital set-top box and digital TV markets.
ATI Technologies describes its Xilleon 220 as the fastest and most highly integrated SoC for the digital set-top box and digital TV markets Xilleon 220 integrates all processor, graphics, video, audio, and I/O (input and output) capabilities needed in a set-top box or digital TV into a single chip
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 24 Dec 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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Included are a 300MHz MIPS CPU, dual-HD (high definition) capable MPEG decoder, audio decoder, display engine, 2D and 3D graphics engine, conditional access, transport demultiplexers, and PCI, USB, and hard disk drive interfaces.
Only tuners, modems, and memory are required to complete the design for many consumer devices.
According to ATI, in order to match the capabilities of Xilleon 220, traditional solutions might require two to four chips for CPU, HD video decode and I/O.
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Xilleon 220 accomplishes these tasks on one chip, saving space, power and cost.
Also, the company reckons most existing set-top boxes are hampered by slow CPU speeds of 50 to 100MHz.
With its industry-leading 300MHz CPU that delivers 390 Dhrystone MIPS of performance, Xilleon 220 provides the horsepower necessary for next-generation digital devices enabling more responsive user interfaces and a wider range of Internet-enabled interactive applications.
The device also includes personal video recorder support with copy protection - Xilleon 220 goes beyond existing solutions by providing a unified platform for digital time-shifting and watch/record of multiple video streams.
The integrated hard disk interface supports the most secure hardware encryption currently available.
It also provides support for two TVs - Xilleon 220 dual display engine allows one inexpensive set-top box to control and display video on two TVs in two different locations, thus eliminating the expense of a second set-top box and greatly reducing deployment costs for network operators and consumers.
With its dual DDR (dual data rate) memory channels Xilleon 220 integrates the most advanced memory interface currently available in a set-top box chipset.
Up to 3Gbyte/s of memory bandwidth is available, three or more times the bandwidth of competing solutions.
The high memory bandwidth enables amazing decode and display of multiple video streams in conjunction with graphics, I/O, and advanced user applications.
And Xilleon 220 integrates the most advanced video and graphics engine in the industry.
Xilleon 220 is the only SoC capable of decoding multiple high-definition or standard-definition video streams and blending those streams with 32bit true-colour graphics from the integrated 2D/3D graphics engine.
The video engine enables flicker removal, deinterlacing, line doubling, studio quality text, and high quality scaling of multiple video windows for picture-in-picture.
"When we started the design of Xilleon 220, we set the objective of developing a chip that would scale across many markets segments with performance and features that would set it apart from the pack - all at a very affordable price point", explained Daniel Eiref, Director of Technology and Marketing, Consumer Products Group, ATI Technologies.
"Our customers are telling us that we've delivered on that goal and they are impressed with the level of integration, wide standards support, excellent multimedia capabilities, integrated time-shifting, and winning CPU and memory performance".
Set-Top-Wonder Xilleon is ATI's fourth-generation reference design and is a complete set-top or digital TV solution on one board.
To complete the design of many products, designers can simply plug a network interface module (NIM) for the appropriate broadcast format - QAM, QPSK, COFDM or VSB - into a NIM connector and plug other peripherals into one of the PCI slots.
The board is capable of supporting most embedded operating systems, including Linux, Microsoft Windows CE and VxWorks.
Driver-level software and reference applications are available.
Xilleon 220 is available in two versions.
Xilleon 220S supports standard definition video decode while Xilleon 220H supports both standard-definition and high-definition video.
Chip volume production is targeted to begin in Q1 2002.
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