|
TOSHIBA SHOWCASES COMPLETE TX49 RISC PROCESSOR-BASED REFERENCE PLATFORM FOR ENTERTAINMENT HOME GATEWAYS
Modular and Configurable PCI-Based Solution Gives Early Adopters a Head Start on Entertainment Gateway Designs and Development for the Home of the Future
San Jose, CA--September 30, 2002-- Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today disclosed details of a complete integrated TX49 Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) processor-based reference platform for entertainment home gateway applications. Five leading companies joined with TAEC and cooperated in the development of the reference platform: Lineo, Systemonic, Sigma Designs, Vweb and Wipro Limited. The first demonstration of the reference platform will take place at CEATEC in Japan on October 1, 2002.
"Toshiba expects the entertainment gateway to be the
center of the home of the future. Toshiba's configurable leading-edge
reference platform gives developers flexibility and a time-to-market
advantage in creating solutions for the emerging entertainment gateway
market. A time-to-market advantage is key for those companies who
are driving and defining the standards of the future," said
Farhad Mafie, vice president of the ASSP Business Unit at TAEC.
"Toshiba's highly integrated, high-performance 64-bit TX49
MIPS-based RISC processor is at the heart of this reference platform.
The solution includes complete hardware and system-level software,
which are integrated and optimized for the best overall system performance.
Together with the best-of-breed functionality and support from leading
hardware and software players, our entertainment platform provides
the most complete, flexible and high-performance solution,"
he added.
Toshiba's modular and configurable entertainment
gateway reference platform incorporates the features and functions
needed to build an entertainment gateway or add connectivity to
products including televisions, personal computers, digital video
recorders, personal video recorders, game consoles, etc. Various
configurations are supported and new functions for emerging vertical
markets can be added. Integrating both hardware and software on
a Linux operating system platform, the entertainment home gateway
reference solution includes:
- Toshiba's TX49 64-bit RISC processor, which includes
an integrated memory controller, a Peripheral Component Interconnect
(PCI) controller, Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitters,
timers, a serial peripheral interface, an Audio Codec '97 interface
and a triple Data Encryption Standard engine.
- Toshiba's recently announced TC86C001FG companion
chip, which supports the PCI interface, the Inter-IC bus, Universal
Serial Bus (USB) hosts, USB devices, Integrated Drive Electronics
Ultra-DMA mode 4 interface, general parallel input/output (I/O)
and serial I/O.
- Sigma Designs' DVD/MPEG-4 decoder with full-screen
MPEG-4 playback.
- Systemonic's IEEE 802.11a and 802.11b detect and
connect auto-change protocol.
- Vweb's MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 codec, MPEG-2 and -4 transcoding
on the fly, D1 size (720 x 486 pixels) MPEG-4 and a video streaming
engine.
- Lineo and Wipro's communications, virtual private
network engine and voice over IP on embedded Linux.
"Existing solutions from competitors fall far
short of the flexible, diverse capability that is provided with
Toshiba's entertainment gateway platform. Competing single-chip
or chipset solutions narrowly target specific end-products and miss
important functionality needed in an entertainment center such as
802.11 wireless solutions and support for MPEG streaming video,"
said Tetsuro Wada, platform development director of the ASSP Business
Unit at TAEC. "Our customers can get up to a year's head start
on writing software code and access to a complete bill of materials
for speedy development. As well, their designs can evolve as their
product needs and industry standards change." He added that
the platform could be used for other emerging market applications
such as an MPEG-4 camera and surveillance system.
Market Background
While the definition of an entertainment home gateway is still emerging, conceptually, it will serve as the pivotal point between public and home networks. It will connect the public packet network to the residential network. Incoming broadband data may be delivered via cable or DSL modem but in all cases will pass through the entertainment home gateway. Most likely implemented as a single box, the entertainment gateway will route the data, audio and video via a wired or wireless connection to a client product, such as a telephone, PC, TV, VCR or game console. The gateway server is also responsible for secure routing and switching, including content protection. "
Availability
TAEC will make the entertainment reference platform available to customers at no cost upon request starting in the third quarter of 2002. Interested customers should contact TAEC directly.
About TAEC
Combining quality and flexibility with design engineering expertise, TAEC brings a breadth of advanced, next-generation technologies to its customers. This broad offering includes semiconductors, flash memory-based storage solutions, optical communication devices, displays and rechargeable batteries for the computing, wireless, networking, automotive and digital consumer markets.
TAEC is an independent operating company owned by
Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba, the second largest
semiconductor company worldwide in terms of global sales for the
year 2001 according to Gartner/Dataquest's Worldwide Semiconductor
Market Share Ranking. Toshiba is a world leader in high-technology
products with more than 300 major subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide.
For additional company and product information, please visit TAEC's
web site at chips.toshiba.com. For technical inquiries, please e-mail:
Tech.Questions@taec.toshiba.com
###
All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
Editor Note: Block diagrams are available upon request.
Toshiba Entertainment Gateway Press Release Addendum:
Supporting Quotes from Cooperating Companies
Lineo
"We are very excited to be a central part of
the Linux home convergence market," said Sekhar Kondepudi,
general manager of Lineo/Embedix's Residential Gateway and Digital
TV division. "The integration of multimedia with high-speed
wireless technologies will enable a whole new paradigm in the fast
moving world of video and entertainment by incorporating mobility.
Working closely with our software partner Wipro and with leading
hardware players, such as Toshiba, Vweb, Systemonic and Sigma Designs,
Lineo will provide a comprehensive, best-of-breed Linux solution
that enables consumer electronics manufacturers to reduce development
investment while providing a feature-rich platform for the residential
gateway markets."
Sigma Designs
"Entertainment gateways are poised to become
a significant new product during this decade, " said Ken Lowe,
vice president of business development at Sigma Designs. "Using
Toshiba's TX49 RISC processor and Sigma's full-screen MPEG-4 decoder,
this new platform combines the power and audio/video features to
satisfy a wide range of entertainment needs."
Vweb
"This residential gateway solution seamlessly
enables consumers to bridge between broadband and home networks
and to deploy ubiquitous video networking, said Dr. Sho Long Chen,
President and CEO at Vweb Corporation. Our newly developed VW2005
MPEG-1, 2 and 4 encoder chip and VW2010 MPEG 1, 2 and 4 codec chip
with transcoding and transrating capabilities will meet strong demand
for low bit rate and low latency applications. These applications
include residential gateways, set-top boxes, personal video recorders,
internet appliances, DVD-quality MPEG-4 compact disc/DVD/ hard disk
drive-recordable, video surveillance, video conferencing, video
on demand and video conferencing."
Wipro Limited
"The entertainment gateway is all about multimedia
digital content distribution to various devices over wired and wireless
networks within the home," said Dilip Thakur, vice president,
Technology Development Council at Wipro Technologies. "The
ideal combination of Toshiba entertainment gateway and Wipro streaming
solution creates new value-added entertainment distribution within
a consumer's home."
|
