VeriSilicon introduces Hantro G2 video decoder IP with HEVC and VP9 support

World’s first semiconductor IP to support both HEVC and VP9 video formats

SHANGHAI — VeriSilicon Holdings Co., Ltd. (VeriSilicon), a leading custom silicon solutions and semiconductor IP provider, announced today the availability of Hantro G2 multi-format video decoder IP to support ultra HD 4K video decoding for HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding, aka H.265) video coding standard. The G2 IP also adds support for the upcoming VP9 web video format from the WebM Project. In addition, all legacy video formats such as H.264, VP8, MPEG-4, VC-1, AVS (soon also AVS+), MPEG-2, DivX, Sorenson Spark and VP6 are supported in Hantro G2 IP.

Hantro G2 is a scalable IP solution providing an optimized silicon area depending on licensee’s target market and performance requirements varying from leading edge 4K@60 fps for e.g. Ultra-HD TV, to industry standard 1080p HD, or to lower tier SD resolution for features phones, etc. Hantro G2 is the industry’s first IP to support 4K@60 fps with a single-core architecture using less than 1 million logic gates. Hantro G2 represents the 13th generation of Hantro Video IP, the market leading video semiconductor IP deployed in more than one billion chips and used by more than 75 semiconductor companies worldwide.

VP9 is the next generation, open video codec developed under the WebM Project initiated by Google. VP9 is expected to require up to 50% less bandwidth to achieve the same visual quality as the very best H.264 high profile, providing significant bandwidth savings for web video services. VP9 provides a low-latency, high-quality video coding ideal for WebRTC applications, i.e. real-time video conferencing within the browser. VeriSilicon was the first IP provider in the industry to support VP8 decoding and encoding. Now, VeriSilicon is again the first company to provide VP9 decoder support in the Hantro IP.

“HD video is everywhere in our daily life, not only for entertainment through consumer electronics but also for surveillance and security through infrastructures. We can leverage the excellent performance of Hantro G2 Multi-format Video Decoder IP with HEVC and VP9 support to meet the challenges of network bandwidth, storage cost and power consumption,” says Dr. Wayne Dai, President and CEO of VeriSilicon. “We believe that HEVC and VP9 will become ubiquitous video formats, gradually replacing H.264 in many services.”

“We expect VP9 will be the format of choice for popular web platforms and services,” said Jani Huoponen, hardware product manager for the WebM Project. “VeriSilicon’s Hantro G2 Decoder IP with VP9 enables chip companies to rapidly bring ultra low-power, efficient silicon-area mobile application processors and STB/DTV chips to market and help enable efficient VP9 playback support in popular platforms and services, such as Chrome and YouTube.”

VeriSilicon is working on Hantro H2 Multi-format encoder with support for HEVC and VP9 to be released later this year.