Cirrus decoder supports multifunction DVD players

Cirrus decoder supports multifunction DVD players

By Junko Yoshida
EE Times October 15, 2002 (12:00 p.m. EST)

PARIS — Cirrus Logic Inc. has rolled out a decoder IC designed for use in high-end DVD systems featuring multiple functions, including DVD players that provide access to online content or sport a hard-disk drive.

"We are targeting at a specialty DVD market with this silicon," said Terry Richie, vice president of video marketing at Cirrus Logic (Austin, Texas).

The CS98200 chip features two 32-bit RISC cores that offer 360 million instructions per second (Mips) total performance, a 32-bit audio DSP featuring 180 Mips performance, and an MPEG-2 video core originally developed by LuxoSonor Semiconductors. Cirrus has strengthened its DVD portfolio over the last two years by adding decoder silicon via its acquisition of LuxoSonor and video-compression technology via its acquisition of Stream Machine.

"The combination of RISC cores and DSP core on CS98200 is powerful enough to add new enhancements to DVD players," Ritchie said.

An Enhanced DVD application, which adds Web browsing capabilities to a DVD player, can utilize the CS98200's dual-processor architecture, Ritchie said. The decoder includes a v.90 soft modem that allows viewers to watch a DVD movie while simultaneously running a browser to get Web-based enhanced DVD information off the Internet. No competitors have a DVD decoder chip capable of running a soft modem yet, Ritchie added.

InterActual Technologies Inc. in September said it had lined up support for its combination of DVD video and Internet content, and said chip makers Cirrus Logic and LSI Logic as well as content providers Buena Vista Home Entertainment, New Line Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video would help install its PC-based interactive DVD technology into next-generation consumer DVD players.

The CS98200 is capable of decoding all audio formats, Cirrus said, including eight-channel DVD-Audio, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby Digital, Advanced Audio Coding, Meridian Lossless Packing, Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Audio, DTS and MP3. The chip also integrates six 10-bit D/A converters to support video and audio output formats.

The CS98200 features second-generation progressive-scan technology that will allow users to "switch from 24 frames [per second video] to 30 frames on the fly," Ritchie said. The chip also supports the presentation of MPEG-4 files.

Ritchie said multifunction DVD systems represent "a red-hot market" and said Cirrus is now defining a second-generation, single-chip DVD recorder solution scheduled for launch for Christmas 2004. "The high-definition recording capability is more and more talked about as a requirement," he said. The company's current CS92288 chip does not support high-definition content.

The CS98200, integrated with a hard-disk drive interface and audio encoding capability, can be used for a consumer jukebox system that allows consumers to encode CD files as MP3 files and store them to a hard drive.

The new chip is fabricated in a 0.18-micron process technology and is priced at $10.08 each in one-million unit quantities. Volume production begins in the fourth quarter.