Nikon D90 - board 0 - Nikon Expeed EI-149-1769

A media processor, mostly used as an

image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...

/ video processor, is a

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...

-based

system-on-a-chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...

which is designed to deal with digital streaming data in real-time (e.g. display refresh) rates. These devices can also be considered a class of

digital signal processor A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on MOS integrated circuit chips. They are widely used in audio s ...

s (DSPs). Unlike

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...

s (GPUs), which are used for computer displays, media processors are targeted at

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...

s and

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of s ...

es. The streaming

digital media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ...

classes include: * uncompressed video * compressed digital video - e.g.

MPEG-1 MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively) without excessive quality loss, making ...

MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, ...

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related t ...

digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, samp ...

- e.g.

PCM Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the am ...

, AAC Such SOCs are composed of: * a microprocessor optimized to deal with these media datatypes * a memory interface * streaming media interfaces * specialized functional units to help deal with the various digital media

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

s The microprocessor might have these optimizations: * vector processing or SIMD functional units to efficiently deal with these media datatypes * DSP-like features Previous to media processors, these streaming media datatypes were processed using fixed-function, hardwired

ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficie ...

s, which could not be updated in the field. This was a big disadvantage when any of the media standards were changed. Since media processors are software programmed devices, the processing done on them could be updated with new software releases. This allowed new generations of systems to be created without hardware redesign. For set-top boxes this even allows for the possibility of in-the-field upgrade by downloading of new software through cable or satellite networks. Companies that pioneered the idea of media processors (and created the marketing term of media processor) included: *

MicroUnity MicroUnity Systems Engineering, Inc. was a private company located in Los Altos, California and an early developer of broadband microprocessor technologies licensed widely across digital media industries. Founders and Funding MicroUnity was fo ...

MediaProcessor - Cancelled in 1996 before introduction * IBM Mfast - Described at the Microprocessor Forum in 1995, planned to ship in mid-1997 but was cancelled before introduction * Equator Semiconductor BSP line - their processors are used in

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Nissan ''zaibatsu'' and later DKB Group and Fuyo G ...

televisions, company acquired by Pixelworks * Chromatic Research MPact line - their products were used on some PC graphics cards in the mid-1990s, company acquired by

ATI Technologies ATI Technologies Inc. (commonly called ATI) was a Canadian semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technology Inc., ...

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

TriMedia line - used in Philips, Dell, Sony, etc. consumer electronics, Philips Semiconductors split off from Philips and became

NXP Semiconductors NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXP) is a Dutch semiconductor designer and manufacturer with headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The company employs approximately 31,000 people in more than 30 countries. NXP reported revenue of $11.06 billion in 2 ...

in 2006

Consumer electronics Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic ( analog or digital) equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usuall ...

companies have successfully dominated this market by designing their own media processors and integrating them into their video products. Companies such as

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, Matsushita,

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

have their own in-house media processor devices. Newer generations of such devices now use various forms of

multiprocessing Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. There ar ...

—multiple

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...

s or DSPs, in order to deal with the vastly increased computational needs when dealing with

high-definition television High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

signals.

External links

http://www.microunity.com

http://www.equator.combest lga 1155 cpu

http://www.philips.com

http://www.nxp.com
{{System on a chip Central processing unit Coprocessors Digital electronics Digital signal processing Digital signal processors