Rambus is developing a so-called pico-camera, a lens-free device significantly cheaper and smaller than today’s tiniest imagers. The technique still requires significant computation to deliver even a blurry image, however the company sees an initial opportunity to enter the market as a thermal camera.
News
Smartphone cameras: What’s coming next (Smartphones Unlocked)
It wasn’t all that long ago that a 3.2-megapixel camera on the back of your smartphone was reason to show off. Now, phone-makers like Nokia and Samsung are forging a new frontier of mobile photography aimed at incorporating the technology of a point-and-shoot into the smartphone bundle.
Northwest Logic and Mixel Complete MIPI Solutions Continue to Win Over Customers
Nufront and YYG, Both Pacific Rim Companies, Go to Production with Multiple Mixel MIPI Solutions
Mixel Continues to Gain Market Share with Global Customers Deploying its MIPI Solutions
San Jose, CA – July 23rd, 2013 – Mixel®, the leader in mobile mixed-signal intellectual property (IP), announced today that both Nufront, a leader in Chinese mobile communication and computing, and Shenzhen Yunyinggu Technology Co. Ltd. (YYG), an innovative Chinese high-tech company with focus on next-generation display technology, have both licensed multiple Mixel MIPI® IP, successfully incorporated the IP into their products, and are at various stages of high volume production.
Mixel provided Nufront with MIPI DigRF Transceivers in both 65nm and 40nm process nodes. Nufront achieved first time success with both silicon and has gone into production at both nodes.
“We selected Mixel because of their proven-track record in the MIPI market-place and their silicon-proven technology,” said Min Luo, Nufront’s Director of IC Development. “Achieving first-silicon success at multiple nodes enabled us to rapidly move to production, and have our product designed-in by multiple Nufront customers. The close partnership we have developed with Mixel has proven to be an asset to Nufront as we port our products to multiple foundries.”
YYG first Licensed Mixel’s MIPI D-PHY in 130nm and is now transferring its innovative MIPI DSI solution to production. YYG is now moving forward with its second-generation product at 65nm. Both products employ five MIPI IP from Mixel, namely D-PHY TX, D-PHY RX, MIPI PLL, DSI TX controller, and DSI RX controller. While YYG is licensing all 5 IP from Mixel as a complete MIPI solution, the two controller IPs were developed by Northwest Logic, an active participant in Mixel’s MIPI Central Ecosystem Partnership Program, which brings together best-of-class MIPI ecosystem stakeholders.
“Mixel has provided us with an outstanding support on our first generation product, and they were able to rapidly deliver their MIPI solution to meet our tight time-to-market requirements,” said Yan Lin, YYG’s VP of Engineering. “Because of this exceptional support on our first product, we decided to work with Mixel again on our second generation product, this time at a more advanced node, and a different foundry. We are delighted that Mixel and NWL have been able to customize their IP with added features that will help us differentiate our display solution and win a larger share of our target market.”
“We are glad to see Mixel expanding its share in the Pacific Rim, a very dynamic region for MIPI adoption, and that many of our existing customers are demonstrating their loyalty to the Mixel brand by choosing Mixel time and again,” said Ashraf Takla, Mixel President and CEO. “We are also delighted that our methodology of continuous improvement of our existing IP, such as size and power reduction and feature differentiation, much of it in collaboration with our customers and partners, are bringing back value to the whole MIPI ecosystem.”
For more information contact:
Han Mai Vinitha Seevaratnam
Mixel, Inc. Northwest Logic
(408) 436-8500 x115 (503) 533-5800 x308
[email protected] [email protected]
www.mixel.com www.nwlogic.com
Min Luo Yan Lin
Nufront Shenzhen Yunyinggu Technology Co. Ltd.
[email protected] [email protected]
+86-10-5738-9234
About Mixel®:
Mixel is the leader in mixed-signal mobile IPs and offers a wide portfolio of high-performance mixed-signal connectivity IP solutions. Mixel’s mixed-signal portfolio includes PHYs and SerDes, such as Mobile PHYs (MIPI® D-PHY, M-PHYSM, and LVDS), general purpose Transceivers, and high-performance PLL and DLL IP cores. For more information contact Mixel at [email protected] or visit www.mixel.com.
About Northwest Logic
Northwest Logic, founded in 1995 and located in Beaverton, Oregon, provides high-performance, silicon-proven, easy-to-use IP cores including high-performance Memory Interface Solution (DDR4/3/2, LPDDR3/2/1, RLDRAM 3/II), Expresso Solution (PCI Express 3.0/2.1/1.1 cores and drivers including DMA support), and MIPI Solution (CSI-2, DSI). These solutions support a full range of platforms including ASICs, Structured ASICs and FPGAs. For additional information, visit www.nwlogic.com or contact [email protected].
About Nufront:
Nufront is a Chinese high-tech company focus on mobile communication and computing. It provides total solutions for mobile phone and tablet including application processor based on ARM Cortex A9 dual core, and GSM/WCDMA dual mode baseband processor. For more information, please contact [email protected] or visit www.nufront.com.
About YYG:
YYG is a Chinese high-tech company focus on innovative display technology. It provides color rendering solution to enhance display resolution and color representation while keeping low power consumption and low cost. YYG’s technology can be used for various display including LCD and OLED, ranging from small size for mobile phone to large size for TV. For more information, please contact yan.lin@yunyinggu.com
About The MIPI AllianceMIPI (MIPI®) Alliance is a global, collaborative organization comprised of companies spanning the mobile ecosystem that are committed to defining and promoting interface specifications for mobile devices. MIPI Specifications establish standards for hardware and software interfaces which drive new technology and enable faster deployment of new features and services across the mobile ecosystem. For more information, go to www.mipi.org. |
MIPI® is a registered trademark of MIPI Alliance, Inc.
Mixel® and the Mixel logo are registered trademarks of Mixel, Inc.
Aldec Verifies Compatibility of Northwest Logic’s PCI Express Cores with HES-7TM SoC/ASIC Prototyping Platform
Henderson, Nevada – July 11, 2013 – Aldec, Inc., a pioneer in mixed HDL language simulation and hardware-assisted verification solutions, today announced that engineers incorporating high-speed PCI Express data transmission into their SoC and ASIC designs can accelerate their time-to-market utilizing Northwest Logic PCI Express IP Cores with Aldec’s HES-7™ prototyping platform.
“Northwest Logic’s PCI Express IP cores enable designers to quickly create PCI Express-based SoC designs for a variety of markets including embedded applications, server development, communications, and more,” said Aldec HES-7 product engineer, Bill Tomas, “The combination of Northwest Logic’s pre-verified PCI Express IP Cores with the high-speed capabilities of the HES-7 enables design teams to reduce system verification time and the risks of silicon re-spins”.
The HES-7 SoC/ASIC Prototyping Platform is a scalable FPGA-based solution for hardware and software teams developing SoC and ASIC designs up to 96 million ASIC gates. Utilizing the latest in FPGA technology with the Xilinx® Virtex®-7 family and Zynq™ SoC, HES-7 provides support for ARM® Cortex™-based designs with several media interfaces available on-board including: Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI, and more. HES-7 also has a PCI Express finger available on-board and is able to handle PCI Express Gen2 and Gen31 designs for up to 8 Gb/s serial data rate.
Northwest Logic’s PCI Express Solution provides a robust and proven platform for developing PCI Express 3.0/2.1/1.1 based products. This high-performance, easy-to-use solution includes a controller core (Expresso 3.0 Core), DMA core (Expresso DMA Core), and drivers (Expresso DMA Drivers).
“HES-7 provides a lot of capability in a little package,” said Northwest Logic’s president, Brian Daellenbach, “The dual Virtex-7 2000T and ARM support, in combination with the Northwest Logic PCIe Cores, enable large SoC, PCIe-based designs to be quickly prototyped with a minimum of design partitioning”.
About Aldec
Aldec, Inc., headquartered in Henderson, Nevada, is an industry leader in Electronic Design Verification and offers a patented technology suite, including: RTL Design, RTL Simulators, Hardware-Assisted Verification, Design Rule Checking, IP Cores, Requirements Lifecycle Management, DO-254 Functional Verification and Military/Aerospace solutions. www.aldec.com
About Northwest Logic
Northwest Logic, founded in 1995 and located in Beaverton, Oregon, provides high-performance, silicon-proven, easy-to-use IP cores including high-performance PCI Express solution (PCI Express 3.0, 2.1 and 1.1 cores and drivers), Memory Interface Solution (DDR4/3/2, LPDDR3/2 SDRAM; RLDRAM 3/II), and MIPI Solution (CSI-2, DSI). These solutions support a full range of platforms including ASICs, Structured ASICs and FPGAs. For additional information, visit www.nwlogic.com.
Media Contacts:
Aldec, Inc.
Christina Toole
Corporate Marketing Manager
+(702) 990-4400
christinat@aldec.com
Northwest Logic, Inc.
Vinitha Seevaratnam
Product Marketing Engineer
+(503) 533-5800 ext. 308
1Requires Kintex-7 Device with FF Package
Aldec is a registered trademark of Aldec, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Complete FPGA-Based MIPI Video Demonstration System Now Available
July 9, 2013 — Altima Corporation, Northwest Logic, and Meticom announce the immediate availability of a complete MIPI video demonstration system using Altera’s Cyclone IV and V FPGAs. This demonstration system takes an HDMI video stream, processes it in an Altera FPGA and then streams it to a MIPI-compatible display. This system demonstrates a complete MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI) solution for small to medium-sized, high-resolution panel applications. A video of this demonstration system in operation can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO6ucyALvZc
DSI and Camera Serial Interface 2 (CSI-2) are becoming the industry standard for connecting to low cost embedded displays and cameras. These standards are developed and promoted by the MIPI Alliance (www.mipi.org). MIPI designs are now beginning to use FPGAs. However, the current generation of FPGAs does not generally support MIPI from an I/O perspective. The combination of the Meticom FPGA Bridge ICs and the Northwest Logic MIPI Controller Cores enable complete FPGA-based MIPI solutions to be created.
Altima distributes a broad range of devices including Altera FPGAs. Altima has taken the Meticom and Northwest Logic components and created a complete video demonstration using the Cyclone IV and V FPGAs. This demonstration includes an Altima-developed FPGA design and Meticom-based interface card. The MIPI portion of the design was created using a DSI Controller Core from Northwest Logic in combination with the MC20002 FPGA Bridge IC from Meticom. Contact Altima (www.altima.jp) for more information. “The Northwest Logic DSI Controller Core and the Meticom FPGA Bridge IC enabled us to very quickly create this demo system. This demo system shows that low cost, FPGA-based MIPI systems can be developed quickly and reliably,” said Toru Saito, Executive Vice President at Altima.
Northwest Logic provides a complete set of DSI (Host and Peripheral) and CSI-2 (Tx & Rx) Controller Cores. These full-featured cores support high speed MIPI data rates in both FPGAs and ASICs and are fully available. Contact Northwest Logic (www.nwlogic.com) for more information. “Altima has put together a very impressive demonstration system in a minimal amount of time. This clearly demonstrates that customers can create FPGA-based MIPI systems quickly with minimal risk. It has been a pleasure working with our close partner Meticom to support Altima in this effort,” said Brian Daellenbach, president at Northwest Logic.
Meticom provides a range of high-speed interconnect solutions including the MC20001 and MC20002 FPGA Bridge ICs. These ICs convert between MIPI and FPGA LVDS (high speed) and LVCMOS (low power) signals. They can be used to implement low-cost. FPGA-based MIPI designs and are fully production available. Contact Meticom (www.meticom.com) for more information. “Altima’s demonstration system shows that the combination our FPGA Bridge ICs and the Northwest Logic cores provide a solid platform for creating FPGA-based MIPI designs. Altima’s high-quality design team created this design in a minimal amount of time with a minimal amount of support,” said Wolfgang Schambeck.
About Altima Corporation
Altima Corporation, founded in 1991, provides sales, service and technical support for semiconductors and other global leading-edge high-performance products in the Japanese market. Since its establishment, Altima has been one of the world’s leading distributors of ALTERA (U.S.) CPLD/FPGA products. Altima provides total support services, from developmental support for products that utilize ALTERA products, to technical support and programming services. For more information, visit www.altima.jp/
About Northwest Logic
Northwest Logic, founded in 1995 and located in Beaverton, Oregon, provides high-performance, silicon-proven, easy-to-use IP cores including high-performance Memory Interface Solution (DDR4/3/2, LPDDR3/2/1, RLDRAM 3/II), Expresso Solution (PCI Express 3.0/2.1/1.1 cores and drivers including DMA support), and MIPI Solution (CSI-2, DSI). These solutions support a full range of platforms including ASICs, Structured ASICs and FPGAs. For more information, visit www.nwlogic.com.
About Meticom
Meticom is a specialized high-speed interconnect company that designs, manufactures and markets customized high-performance, active interconnects for a variety of industries, including Industrial, Medical, Test & Measurement, Automotive, and Defense.
Our product portfolio includes customized active optical interconnect cables, ASIC interconnect solutions and extensive technical support in these fields. For more information, visit www.meticom.com.
# # #
Altima, Meticom, and Northwest Logic, are trademarks, which are the property of their respective holders.
PCI Express 3.0 Solution passes PCI-SIG PCIe 3.0 Compliance Testing at First Official PCIe 3.0 Compliance Workshop
Beaverton, Oregon – June 5, 2013— Northwest Logic today announced that its PCI Express® (PCIe®) 3.0 solution, including the Expresso 3.0 Core (PCI Express 3.0 Controller Core) and Expresso DMA Core passed all Gold and Interoperability tests at the April 2013 PCI-SIG® Compliance Workshop. This testing was done with 8 lanes running at 8 Gbit/s SERDES rates at the first official PCIe 3.0 compliance workshop. See PCI-SIG Integrators List at http://www.pcisig.com/developers/compliance_program/integrators_list/pcie_3.0.
“Our successful compliance testing further verifies that Northwest Logic’s PCI Express 3.0 solution provides a robust and proven platform for developing PCI Express 3.0/2.1/1.1 based products. This solution is silicon-proven and available for both ASIC and FPGA platforms.” said Brian Daellenbach, President of Northwest Logic.
The PCI-SIG is responsible for the development of PCI-related standards including PCI Express, PCI-X® and PCI®. The PCI-SIG holds quarterly PCI Express Compliance Workshops where companies can compliance test their PCI Express products. The PCI Express Gold and Interoperability Compliance endpoint testing consists of:
- Interoperability Testing with a range of motherboard and switch products
- Physical Layer Testing using a high-performance oscilloscope
- Data-Link and Transaction Layer Testing using the Agilent Protocol Test Card
- Configuration Testing using configuration test software
“We’re pleased Northwest Logic has passed PCIe 3.0 compliance testing with its PCIe 3.0 IP products which aid designers by reducing the risk and cost of developing PCIe 3.0 designs,” said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG President and Chairman. “Its PCIe 3.0 compliant products ensure protocol adherence and interoperability which contributes to the continued success of the PCI Express standard.”
At the same Compliance Workshop, Xilinx, Inc. also successfully tested its Kintex®-7 FPGAs with GTX transceivers for compliance with the Northwest Logic’s Expresso 3.0 Core. Built on state-of-the-art 28nm HPL process technology, the Xilinx® 7 Series All Programmable FPGA family is a generation ahead with breakout performance, capacity, and system integration while optimizing price/performance/watt.
“As a distinguished Premier Member of the Xilinx Alliance Program, Northwest Logic worked closely with Xilinx to ensure their PCI Express cores and our FPGAs provide best-in-class PCI Express 3.0 performance and features,” stated Tom Feist, Senior Marketing Director of Design Methodology at Xilinx. “In addition, because this PCI-SIG validation was completed on Xilinx’s GTX transceiver technology, this solution also extends to Virtex®-7 FPGAs and Zynq®-7000 All Programmable SoCs.”
Key advantages of Northwest Logic’s PCI Express 3.0 solution include:
- Silicon Proven
- Complete solution significantly reduces development risk, cost and schedule
- Expresso DMA Core and Driver provides high-performance scatter-gather DMA support
- Provided with a testbench including PHY models for quick, out-of-the-box simulation
- Comprehensive FPGA and ASIC support
- High-quality technical support
- Customization and integration services available
Northwest Logic, founded in 1995 and located in Beaverton, Oregon, provides high-performance, silicon-proven, easy-to-use IP cores including high-performance PCI Express solution (PCI Express 3.0, 2.1 and 1.1 cores and drivers), Memory Interface Solution (DDR4/3/2, LPDDR3/2 SDRAM; RLDRAM 3/II), and MIPI Solution (CSI-2, DSI). These solutions support a full range of platforms including ASICs, Structured ASICs and FPGAs. For additional information, visit https://nwlogic.com.
###
PCI-SIG, PCI Express, PCIe, PCI-X and PCI are all trademarks or registered trademarks of PCI-SIG. All trademarks are the property of their respective holder.
For more information contact:
Vinitha Seevaratnam
Northwest Logic
(503) 533-5800 x308
www.nwlogic.com