Technology
Video compression algorithms
At the crux of Qpixel technology lie our breakthroughs in video compression algorithms that have allowed us to efficiently and effectively implement the computation-intensive H.264 compression standard. While competition is coming out with MPEG4 Part 2 or H.264 Baseline Profile only, Qpixel’s innovative algorithms allow us to make a jump ahead of the competition by offering H.264 Main Profile, enabling a video compression solution which can provide a superior balance of high quality, low cost and low power consumption. Qpixel's unique algorithm implementation also comes with value-added versatility, enabling multi-format support with essentially no cost overhead.
Qpixel’s Advanced Video Input Pre-processing algorithms, specifically designed for our encoder, significantly improve performance of our encoding engine. The features, among other tasks, include adaptive spatial-temporal de-noising, scene change detection, automatic inverse telecine for high-quality film rate conversion and other pre-processing to assist the encoding engine in field/frame decision, mode selection, and rate control.
Qpixel’s Advanced Encoder Processing algorithms optimizes the video quality using a patented mode decision algorithm based on an efficient and comprehensive scheme, patent-pending adaptive TDM scheme for low power encoder pipeline design, and hardware-assisted rate control using advanced scalable algorithms.
As a result of Qpixel’s techniques, not only is the H.264 Main Profile standard met with its low bitrate, but extremely high quality video is also maintained. Qpixel's underlying core algorithm concept has built-in scalability and can be easily extended to higher bitrates and resolutions.
Power algorithms
Qpixel employs an innovative low-power algorithm that is the core of its ability to deliver products that not only can handle the complex processing, but can do it with the most efficient power that is required in portable devices.
Qpixel products use the latest techniques to keep gate count and power consumption low. The advanced standby power mode of the QL201B keeps power consumption to < 5mW when the device is in standby mode, reducing the drain on battery life when the device is not in use, making it ideally suited for portable devices. With a highly efficient memory controller allowing for use with a low power 16-bit wide external memory, the power consumption of the overall system is also greatly reduced.
Flexible Architecture
Given the constantly evolving nature of the mass consumer market as well as the desire for OEM customers to differentiate their products, a flexible architecture is a highly desired feature. There are of course, tradeoffs between flexibility and cost/complexity, power consumption, and software development effort, translating to time-to-market.
The most flexible architecture is the generic processor which is fully programmable and depending on the software running on it, can be tailored to accomplish a wide variety of tasks and support a wide variety of features. Although a fast time-to-market may be achieved with some software programming vs. developing a new device, and changes or differentiation needed to add market-required features can be done quickly, for the cost conscious consumer and the low power requirements of portable devices, a fully programmable processor is not feasible. The premium on cost and power would not make it viable for this market.
The most cost effective architecture is the fixed-function ASIC design. For commodity mass market consumer devices, this method is the best way to achieve low power consumption as well as the lowest cost. It is however, a fully dedicated design for its target applications and highly inflexible when it comes to differentiation or feature modifications. Major feature or standard changes would require a re-spin of the ASIC.
Qpixel’s focus is on the customer and the consumer target applications with opportunities for customer differentiation from the start. The products’ architecture was designed based on the needs of the mass consumer market, benefiting from the flexibility afforded by an embedded microcontroller, with the efficiency of dedicated hardware blocks. With its low power consumption and gate count, Qpixel achieves the optimum level of flexibility required in this market.
The architecture was also designed to be highly flexible to easily migrate to future product families to enable quick time-to-market for future devices. From the start, Qpixel designed the architecture to be highly modular so that the process of migrating to future compression standards starts with modifications to this architecture as opposed to a grounds-up design. Qpixel’s architecture again strikes the perfect market balance.
Application-focused Design Methodology
Qpixel uses an advanced silicon design methodology that models applications at the system level, to ensure target applications work quickly. Many silicon designs only go through emulations that model the core of the design. The risk to this approach is that when the design is put into real customer applications, it may end up taking a longer debug and customer design cycle as system-related interactions are not fully modeled.
With Qpixel’s design approach that takes into consideration its target applications, there are no surprises. Qpixel has had a high first tape-out success rate of its IC designs, and was able to bring its customers quickly to market with its first product the QL201. As a result, Qpixel was the first to ship an H.264 Main Profile solution. As the right market timing is crucial to mass market consumer success, Qpixel already has a successful track record in keeping up this momentum to bring future products to market.
