Video IP must be close to plug-and-play in terms of SoC integration

Video IP must be close to plug-and-play in terms of SoC integration

It is critical to pick appropriate codec or formats that can be handled by a video IP to support any given application

Pradeep Chakraborty

Monday, October 29, 2007

CIOL: At high pixel rates, what would be the situation with the video subsystem?

RG: Higher resolutions result in the explosion of data. The video subsystem needs to be highly efficient in order to handle the high data movement. It also needs to have very efficient video processing engines to meet the real-time requirements.

CIOL: How much of the off-chip video bandwidth is actually needed by an IP block?

RG: This depends a lot on the resolution that the video IP is likely to handle. The video resolution, profiles and levels will get determined by the application. Trade-offs between silicon real-estate and off-chip video bandwidth plays very critical role.

CIOL: Does the video performance deteriorate as the off-chip memory latency increases? What can be done to improve this?

RG: Yes. Internal buffering will definitely help to reduce this impact, but that can affect the silicon size of the device. Hence, care needs to be taken and trade-off needs to be done depending upon the Video system requirements.

CIOL: How can the designer integrate the video IP core into an SOC design?

RG: Depending upon the interfaces, the video IP can slide easily into the SOC. The IP could be just an engine, or processor core based soft IP or a combination of both. So, the SoC designer needs to evaluate the application requirements and determine the right interfaces and the appropriate processor core, along with the memory sub-system. There could be peripheral interface IPs [that are either part of the VideoIP or separate], which also needs to be inserted as part of the SOC and the data flow on the device needs good management.

CIOL: While integrating, what needs to be kept in mind for achieving lowest system power and energy consumption?

RG: The most important aspect is to make sure that the clocks are shut-off for the sections of the device, which are not active. The more important aspect will be to approach the same, based on the application. There are many tricks that can be done to keep the total power as low as possible without affecting the system performance.

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