NEC Electronics Begins Sampling Industry’s First MPEG2 Encoder ICs with Analog Video-Capture Function

Provides Single-Chip Solution for PCs with High-Quality TV Video Capture

NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) and its subsidiaries in the United States and Europe, NEC Electronics America, Inc. and NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH, announced today two new MPEG2 encoder devices to incorporate hardware-based analog video-capture functionality for the first time in the industry.  The new system LSI chips, product names µPD61153 and µPD61154, have embedded on a single chip an MPEG2 encoder, a three-dimensional (3D) luminance/chrominance (Y/C) separator, a video decoder and a PCI™ interface supporting 4-channel direct memory access (DMA), which make them a perfect single-chip solution for PCs to capture high quality analog video signals. In addition, the µPD61154 chip supports Dolby Digital® audio encoding capability. 

MPEG2 encoding is a key function for compressing video data into the MPEG2 format, and a 3D Y/C separator is a function necessary to suppress the “cross chrominance” and/or “cross luminance” effects seen in conventional 2D Y/C separation, enabling high-quality video capture.  A video decoder converts analog video signals to digital signals, while the PCI interface handles the connection to the main PC board.  These functions have also been offered by NEC Electronics in previously announced discrete devices for similar applications.

NEC Electronics’ 3D Y/C separator LSI and MPEG2 encoder LSI enjoy broad market acceptance, and based on extensive design experience in digital audio/video products, the company is able to successfully integrate the functions required for high-quality video capture in the PC market.  These integrated devices provide a cost reduction of approximately 50 percent and also reduce the board area by 50 percent.

"While multimedia functions such as video capture are increasingly demanded in the PC market, functions such as video compression/decompression and display have been handled with software,“ said Shigeo Niitsu, general manager, 2nd System LSI Division, NEC Electronics Corporation.  “As higher quality is required for those functions along with the prevalence of multimedia PCs, hardware processing will become more crucial, accelerating the competition among PC makers. NEC Electronics’ new products are the best solution for those customers who need to design differentiated products with lower cost and shorter lead time in that kind of competitive market.”

Pricing and Availability
Samples of the µPD61153 and µPD61154 are now available at a price of US$50 each in a 272-pin plastic ball-grid array (PBGA) package (21mm x 21mm).  Volume production is expected to begin in August 2004 with monthly shipment quantity expected to reach 300,000 units in April 2005.  Pricing and availability are subject to change.

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Dolby Digital is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories, Inc. NEC Electronics and NEC Electronics America are either a trademark or registered trademark of NEC Electronics Corporation in Japan, the United States, and/or other countries.  PCI is a trademark of PCI-SIG. All other names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their owners.

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