BANGALORE, INDIA: Fujitsu Microelectronics Asia Pte Ltd today announced the launch of a new graphics controller System-on-Chip (SoC) for automotive infotainment systems, such as next-generation car navigation and digital dashboards.

The new controller, the MB86298, offers the highest-class graphics capability for embedded systems, as well as an industry first of providing output to up to four displays, and up to four video inputs.

Featuring superior input and output functionality, Fujitsu's MB86298 can process four inputted video streams while outputting video to four displays. The inputted videos can be modified, synthesized together, and put on 3-D graphics surfaces within a single screen. Subsequently, with four cameras mounted on all sides of the automobile (front, back, left, and right), it is possible to freely choose the desired viewpoint and form for display.

In addition, the controller’s industry-leading capabilities enable display of eight layers and inter-layer blends, where each information stream is processed separately so that users can selectively change the information screen to be displayed, as well as being able to synthesize the information streams together smoothly and display them.

In recent years, the amount of electronics in automobiles has continued to rise, providing information and entertainment to the driver and passengers, bringing about increased safety, more comfort and reduced environmental impact to the driving experience:  for example, car navigation systems that change with real-time traffic information, video from blind-spot cameras, streaming TV and DVD video to passenger seat displays, and so-called “eco-drive” functions which support low fuel consumption by displaying information of the car’s running condition.

There are increasing needs to simultaneously show several video and image streams to several displays within the automobile, such as showing different images to the driver’s seat and front passenger seat (dual-view LCD displays), and viewing TV and DVDs on the rear seat displays.

At the same time, automotive infotainment systems that capture and display information of the vehicle’s periphery from several cameras mounted on the vehicle have emerged. Subsequently, such automotive systems demand high-performance graphics SoCs that can process in real-time several different images and video streams, and process such large volumes of imaging data at high-speed.

On a single chip, this new MB86298 controller contains the necessary functions demanded for next- generation automotive infotainment systems, providing high-speed video and graphics processing to handle an industry first of four video inputs, and output to four displays. This controller can not only realize systems, which show navigation images to the driver, while showing TV and videos to the passenger displays, as previously possible, but can also process and display the dashboard instrument cluster in 3-D graphics, including meter needles.

In addition, the controller can handle the inputs from four cameras (front, back, left, right) mounted on the vehicle and process them and synthesize them together in real-time. Also, for car navigation 3-D mapping, this controller can output to high-resolution 1600 x 600 pixel displays to bring out  rich image detail, not just of the roads, but of surrounding buildings and scenery.

Key features:
Allows four video capture inputs and output to four displays: To each of two display ports, it is possible to output two screen images, for each screen image, eight levels and inter-layer blends can be displayed. Therefore, on top of a map of the surroundings, explanation notes can be overlaid, as well as an overlay of images of the surroundings from the vehicle cameras. In such cases, the outline of cars is extracted and overlaid, so it is like the overlaid image blends into the background image of the surroundings. Dither and gamma correction functions are included, offering high-quality imaging on displays of varying resolutions and color characteristics.

Furthermore, the four video inputs enable various video inputs to undergo simultaneous processing. Inputs up to resolutions of 1280x720 pixels can be handled, and functions are included for enlargement/reduction, and conversion of interlace format, suitable for motion, to progressive format, which has less noise.

Industry-leading high-speed, high-resolution rendering: It features top-class rendering performance in its industry with 400 million pixels per second, providing real-life maps with minute detail and smooth rendering. As graphics memory, 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM is used, with a maximum data rate of 6.4 gigabytes per second (6.4Gbps), it is possible to display several layers of display data on top of each other at high resolutions.

The controller also contains a unified programmable shader that is capable of operations at 17G FLOPS, which can render highly textured and detailed surfaces, such as the metallic surfaces of a car body, in life-like detail. With such high rendering performance, this controller can output in real-time to high-resolution 1600x600 pixel displays, to bring out rich image detail.

OpenGL ES2.0 graphics acceleration: The MB86298 graphics controller contains an acceleration function for OpenGL ES2.0, making it simpler to construct an in-vehicle entertainment environment. Fujitsu Microelectronics also plans to provide OpenVGTM1.0 support for smooth enlargement/reduction of characters and straight or curved lines.