AllGo and Silicon demonstrate fully programmable HD H.264 video solution

Silicon Hive B.V. and AllGo Embedded Systems Pvt Ltd (Bangalore, India) demonstrated a fully-programmable full high definition H.264 baseline level 4 decoder solution at the embedded technology exhibition in Yokohama, Japan. The solution targeting high definition (HD) video signal processing SoC manufacturers builds on Silicon Hive’s HiveFlex 2500 processor and AllGo’s optimized H.264 codec software.

The companies claims that this is the truly programmable IP solution that is able to service the demands of high definition resolutions at 1080p while maintaining competitive area, power, and code size.

The companies are further cooperating to supply the market with main and high profile decoding solutions as well as introducing an H.264 1080p encoding solution in 2008.

The HiveFlex VSP 2500 consists of a 32-bit VLIW Stream Processor and several video processing tiles. The number of these processor tiles depends on the resolution and functionality of the target system. A twotile system is targeted at multi-standard 1080p decoding solutions for SoC developers in consumer electronics, portable appliances, and mobile phone markets. The HiveCC compiler and the associated programming tool set support rapid development of codec software on the multi-processor system. The HiveFlex 2500 uses a (patent pending) memory input/output architecture that was designed to alleviate common memory bandwidth bottlenecks found in full HD video systems.

George Szanto, vice president of marketing, Silicon Hive, said, “Many companies already offer software-only video codecs, however, working together with AllGo Embedded Systems, we have crafted the only fully-programmable system capable of decoding full HD resolutions on a SoC platform available today. Working closely with AllGo Embedded Systems has enabled Silicon Hive to optimize the HiveFlex 2500 not only for H.264 decoding but for all other video codecs. Unlike other solutions in the market, the HiveFlex VSP2500 IP core truly re-uses all hardware resources when running multiple codecs resulting in an area optimized for multi-codec environments.”

PVG Menon, vice president sales and marketing, AllGo Embedded Systems, stated, “We are excited with this approach to providing true HD encode-decode capability on a fully programmable platform. We believe the way for cost-effective realization of products offering support for multi-standard video solutions will be by using flexible processor platforms such as the HiveFlex-2500. AllGo Systems is proud to be part of this pathbreaking effort.”

Silicon Hive
AllGo Embedded Systems