Pixelworks shows cinematic picture quality on mobiles at COMPUTEX

Pixelworks Demonstrates World’s First Mobile Video Display Processor at Computex 2014

SAN JOSE, Calif. — COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2014 — Pixelworks (NASDAQ: PXLW), an innovative provider of video display processing technology, today announced the world’s first Mobile Video Display Processor, which it will demonstrate at Computex 2014. The introduction of this new processor, code-named Iris, means that mobile device manufacturers, for the very first time, can offer cinematic picture quality on their mobile screens. The Company has a long legacy of creating innovative video display processing solutions for the most demanding large screen applications, and now Pixelworks is extending that technology—and cutting edge picture quality—to all mobile screens.

Video is rapidly becoming the Internet’s “killer app” with video traffic predicted to leap to more than 63% of all Internet traffic by 2017. But an even greater increase is predicted in the number of mobile devices accessing that video1. Yet today’s mobile devices are ill equipped to reliably display the video content headed their way. Not only do their higher resolution screens simply make annoying video artifacts more noticeable, but today, mobile devices lack the video display processing pipelines that remove video artifacts in today’s high resolution large screen applications. Pixelworks is the first to solve this problem with its Iris family of mobile video display processors, and promises to create a new class of mobile device, differentiated on the basis of video quality and user experience.

Pixelworks was able to produce this mobile video quality breakthrough by re-targeting its display processing and MEMC technologies for ultra-low power mobile devices. This by itself would be revolutionary enough, but Iris also offers several important system advancements that improve the mobile viewing experience overall. For instance, Iris not only optimizes all aspects of the display that affect video quality, including scaling, motion blur, judder removal, color management and image enhancement, but it also incorporates contrast management and LED backlight control for optimal viewing in any ambient lighting condition. Additionally, Iris works at the system level to offload both the CPU and GPU, improving battery life and freeing up valuable system resources. By incorporating Iris into any mobile system, designers are able to significantly reduce overall system power, improve performance and radically enhance image quality to create a truly differentiated device that is visibly better.

To date, mobile devices have yet to fully address the issue of video quality,” said Bruce Walicek, Pixelworks President and CEO. “But mobile screens are far too pervasive and popular to ignore the problem any longer. We’re very proud of the work we’ve done to bring Iris to fruition, and we think that with the addition of this technology to mobile devices, consumers will receive the same kind of cinematic viewing experience they’re used to seeing on the highest quality televisions.”

Pixelworks’ demonstration of its Iris Mobile Video Processor will include side-by-side video quality comparisons on today’s mobile screens, showing how Iris addresses the problems of existing mobile video displays and improves the viewing experience.

The company’s portfolio of video display technologies includes the company’s patented Motion Estimation and Motion Compensation (MEMC) and the industry’s only Halo-Free Frame Rate Conversion (FRC)–both of which are critical technologies for creating the most realistic picture possible.