C2 Microsystems Announces CC1200 Full HD Media Processor device family

Next generation media processor family builds on strengths of the most widely adopted solution for internet-connected TVs in the domestic China market

BEIJING, China and SAN JOSE, California — Addressing emerging consumer electronics applications and the increasing demand for high-definition content, C2 Microsystems, Inc. today introduced the CC1200 Full HD Media Processor family for broadband-connected set-top box and digital TV applications. The CC1200 family is designed for the most demanding rich media applications that require full HD video decoding and presentation in conjunction with high performance applications processing. Certain members of the CC1200 family are capable of video encoding and transcoding for new features such as video messaging and place shifting. The CC1200 family inherits the benefits of the proven CC1100 Media Processor and delivers several significant enhancements in applications and media processing.

The CC1200 Media Processor devices are optimized for the display of rich media content delivered using formats such as HTML / JavaScript, Java, Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. They feature a dual-core SMP architecture capable of a CoreMark greater than 1000 and the equivalent of 1000 DMIPS at 350 MHz. The devices also accelerate DirectFB and OpenVG in hardware, delivering significant performance improvements in graphics benchmarks. The CC1200 family devices are capable of decoding the widely adopted H.264, VC-1 /WMV-9, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video standards at Full HD resolution. They support the decoding of the widest range of internet video content in formats such as AVS, RMVB, On2 VP6, and H.263 at up to 720p resolution. SD resolution encoding in a variety of formats is supported on certain devices. All of the devices are complete systems-on-a-chip, integrating the standard interfaces required for connected STB and connected digital TV applications.

“C2 Microsystems is delighted to introduce the CC1200 family of media processor devices. It builds on the strengths of the CC1100 media processor and brings a new level of media and applications processing to connected consumer electronics devices,” said Dr Jinxiang (Gene) Liu, CEO of C2 Microsystems. “It enables a broad range of entertainment experiences on the television and beyond”.

“With the increasing delivery of Internet video content and interest in bringing interactive media communications to the TV, a processor that is flexible in its ability to support a wide range of media codecs and to dynamically allocate processing bandwidth between media and applications will enable TVs and the set top boxes that connect to them to handle these new features,” said Michelle Abraham, Principal Analyst for In-Stat’s Digital Entertainment Group.

The CC1200 family integrates the Jazz 2 media processor, a hybrid applications / content processing architecture which blends a dual core RISC processor with a SIMD vector unit for greatest flexibility in video format support and with Codec Acceleration Processors for highest performance on the most demanding video content. This is coupled with a high performance 175 Mpixels/s 2D graphics processor, a high quality image processing engine incorporating advanced de-interlacing and scaling algorithms and a security processor for secure key management and acceleration of cryptographic operations. All processing elements have access to DRAM memory through a 6.4GB/s DDR-2 memory controller that is specifically designed to manage the differing bandwidth and latency requirements of media and applications processing.

The CC1200 family devices feature a full complement of system interfaces to ease system integration and reduce system bill of material costs: digital audio and video input and output, HDMI and analog component / S-Video / Composite output, 10/100/1000Mb interface to Ethernet PHY, SATA-II HDD / ODD storage interface, NAND Flash storage interface, dual USB interface with OTG capability, SD / MMC card interface, dual digital broadcast transport stream input with smart card support, PCIe and PCMCIA expansion interfaces and a variety of low-speed serial interfaces.

The hardware resources are coupled with a Linux-based software development kit that is optimized for internet-connected consumer electronics applications that require support for multiple concurrent media and networking operations. C2’s Media Framework manages the hard real time audio and video processing functions for multiple streams within an embedded system footprint. The software development kit makes extensive use of proven open-source components such as Qt and WebKit to enable the rapid development of powerful applications with attractive, intuitive user interfaces. The media processor and associated software architecture are designed to allow scaling to address the diverse requirements of emerging applications.

The first two devices of the CC1200 family, the CC1202 and CC1203 are intended for very high performance decoder-only and encoder / decoder applications respectively.

Device samples, hardware development platforms and software development kits are available immediately to qualified customers. C2 will be demonstrating the C1200 family during the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, NV, at booth 20350 in the South 1 hall. Products based on CC1200 family devices are expected to be available to consumers in Q1 2010.