Vweb announces world's smallest MPEG-2 chip By the SBN news staff, Semiconductor
Business News Nov 9, 2000 (11:04 AM)
URL: http://www.semibiznews.com/story/OEG20001109S0032

SAN JOSE-Vweb Corp. here today launched its first product--an MPEG-2 video encoder chip that the startup company says is half the size of competing ICs on the market.

The VW2000 video encoder is a single-chip solution designed for several applications, such as DVD systems, video on demand, video conferencing, digital camcorders, digital servers, personal video recorders, Internet appliances, set-top boxes, and video capture cards.

The VW2000 chip is roughly half the size of competing products, according to the company. Built around a 32-bit SDRAM interface, the 500,000-gate chip uses only 4-Mbytes of SDRAM and 16-Kbits of microcode in a system.

The company's MPEG encoding technology is implemented in hardware and software for multiple applications. The chip utilizes a proprietary patent-pending motion vector search scheme, which produces a smaller die size and faster searches than other chips in the market. It tracks 60 different parameters, which delivers a more consistent group of pictures.

"The VW2000 is the first chip that answers the diverse and exacting needs of the evolving digital video and audio markets," said Sho Long Chen, founder, president, and chief executive of two-year-old Vweb. "The simplicity, compact size, and affordability of our chip enables consumer electronic manufacturers and other customers to quickly and easily bring more reliable products to market," he said.