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        SoC supports broadcast TV on handhelds

        Doug | Date: Dec 21, 2005 | Comments: 1



        NeoMagic has announced support for a range of mobile digital TV broadcast standards based on its MiMagic 6+ multimedia applications processor SoC (system-on-chip). Support is immediately available for the ISDB-T mobile broadcast protocol, while DMB (including DAB) and DVB-H are expected early next year, according to the company.




        The highly integrated MiMagic 6+ targets multimedia-centric handheld devices requiring "rich multimedia content" and low power consumption for imaging, NeoMagic says.

        The chip is based on a 200 MHz ARM926EJ processor, in tandem with a multimedia engine based on NeoMagic's "massively parallel" Associative Processor Array (APA). The core of the APA is an associative memory that merges computing elements and memory to eliminate performance bottlenecks and reduce power consumption, the company says. The video subsystem delivers high quality video encoding and decoding and high-performance 3D and 2D graphics, with up to 8x Java acceleration for mobile entertainment.


        MiMagic 6+ Block Diagram
        (Click image to enlarge)

        Other features of the MiMagic 6+ include advanced camera functions such as digital linear zoom, color correction, and low light enhancement, as well as 2D and 3D graphics acceleration. Additionally, the chip provides a broad range of on-chip interfaces including a USB device interface, serial and parallel I/O, an LCD display controller, an SD/SDIO/MMC card interface, and DRAM and Flash memory interfaces.

        NeoMagic says the chip's available video codec software supports H.264, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, and Windows Media Video, also known as VC-1. H.264 provides high compression efficiencies, while maintaining "impressive" image quality, according to the company.

        NeoMagic's MiMagic applications processors have supported Windows CE since 2003, beginning with the MiMagic 3, which was the heart of the Genesys smartphone reference design. The company's applications processors also support the Linux and Symbian embedded operating systems.

        NeoMagic will demonstrate its processors' mobile TV capabilities at the 3GSM World Congress in February.



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