SoC simplifies move to LCD-based digital TVs

The Nexperia PNX8550 Home Entertainment Engine is an SoC for hybrid digital televisions and home entertainment hubs serving the needs of the connected home.

The Nexperia PNX8550 Home Entertainment Engine is an SoC for hybrid digital televisions and home entertainment hubs serving the needs of the connected home.

Philips has also developed a flexible TV reference design based on the new SoC that provides TV manufacturers with the semiconductors and software to make a cost-effective, seamless transition from analogue cathode ray tube (CRT) TV to liquid crystal display (LCD) and digital TV.

The PNX8550 supports all digital and analogue TV standards; CRT, LCD and plasma displays; 100Hz progressive scan video; high definition video decode and display; multiple picture improvement features; and decode and display for other media such as digital photos and digital home video directly from flash memory cards or Memory Sticks.

Due to the worldwide consumer demand for LCD and plasma displays as well as the transition to new digital broadcast standards in many regions, TV manufacturers are looking for a cost-effective way to bring new TV products to market quickly.

According to DisplaySearch forecasts, the LCD TV market will grow by 87% over the next two years, and the digital TV market will more than double in the same time according to Instat.

Manufacturers will need to be able to easily tailor their products to the unique consumer preferences and varying TV standards in each part of world, yet offer products that are priced for very competitive markets and offer unique features.

"With the Nexperia PNX8550 Home Entertainment Engine, Philips is offering consumer electronics manufacturers a flexible cost-effective way to enter the fast growing LCD and digital television markets", said Paul Martin, marketing manager, Broadband IC solutions, Philips Semiconductors.

"Our newest Nexperia SoC solution incorporates Philips proven media processing, rendering and scaler technology in a single chip, allowing our customers to define unique LCD and DTV products exactly aligned with their feature, function and cost requirements; allowing the end consumer to enjoy a new TV experience in a far greater connected home".

The Nexperia PNX8550 Home Entertainment Engine is a highly integrated SoC incorporating a control processor, two programmable media processors, high definition video decoders, a scaler, renderer and numerous other on-chip functions.

The SoC will support all analogue and digital TV broadcast standards (standard definition and high definition), picture improvement features such as deinterlacing and advanced features such as multiformat audio/video decoding and rendering.

For example, a TV based on the Philips SoC could decode and display digital photographs, MPEG-4 and DV video clips directly from a Flash memory card or Memory Stick.

Dedicated MPEG-2 decoders can also process up to two high definition program streams simultaneously for simultaneous display on the screen (picture-in-picture or side-by-side) or to convert an HD video programme for recording on a standard definition recorder.

The SoC also allows manufacturers to add their own proprietary picture and sound improvement features.

Building on its experience with the first generation Nexperia Home Entertainment Engine, Philips has made all of the audio/visual processing functions that the SoC supports, easy for TV developers to use by implementing application program interfaces (APIs) to handle all the tasks associated with media processing requests, including descrambling, decoding, enhancement, output selection, rendering, memory allocation, priority setting and audio-video synchronisation.

This allows the TV developer to focus on the application, while media processing tasks are handled automatically by the Home Entertainment Engine.

This API will be available for third party software companies to development applications on.

The first of these vendors, ANT, will launch the first product ported to this API this week at IFA 2003.

Two basic chip versions of the PNX8550 Home Entertainment Engine are also available to TV manufacturers.

The Nexperia PNX8551 Home Entertainment SoC offers enhanced features including portable media, Flash media storage connectivity and support for various media formats, such as MP3.

Finally, the PNX8552 is a further alternative chip to the PNX8550 Home Entertainment Engine, offering TV manufacturers a low cost mid-range solution and provides for the ideal transition from analogue to digital TV in mid-end TV sets.

General sampling for the Nexperia PNX855x Home Entertainment Engine SoCs begins in Q1 2004 and will enter volume production in Q2 2004.

Consumer LCD TVs based on the PNX855x chip should be available at retail in Q2 2004.

The first PNX855x supported digital TV sets will be in volume production by Q4 2004.

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