MPEG-2 HDTV Codec Resides On Single Chip

Developed by NTT Electronics, the VASA LSI is reportedly the industry's first single-chip MPEG-2 HDTV codec. The versatile and advanced signal processing architecture (VASA) codec is also available as the VASA-C encoder and VASA-D decoder. The architecture consists of triple encoding cores, a decoding core, a multiplexer/de-multiplexer core, and several dedicated application-specific hardware modules with a hierarchical communication scheme. The device is said to exhibit low power consumption and low latency and operates in MP@HL and 422P@HL and MP@H-14L environments with rates up to 300 Mb/s. Additionally, the chip processes MPEG-2 video in 1080i, 1080/24P, 720P, 480i, and 480P formats with a power consumption of less than 3W. Typical encoder delay time is 66 ms. For more details, call Lorna Garrett at HITACHI HIGH-TECHNOLOGIES, Berkshire, UK. +44 1628 585383.