Pace Soft Silicon releases OMAP enabled multimedia terminal

minal. This is the first commercially available Open Multimedia Application

Platform (OMAP) wireless multimedia forum compliant synchronized video-audio

platform.

A team of 11 people headed by project leader U Satyanarayana worked on this

project for three weeks in a 24-hour cycle. Back in Pune after participating in

an OMAP Developer event hosted by Texas Instruments at their Wireless Business

Unit premises near Nice in France, Pace found admirers for their synchronized

voice and video demonstration. Around 25 Internet Service Vendors (ISVs)

participated in the event.

"The key selling point arising from our participation is that Pace Soft

Silicon produced a working demonstration of video and voice decoding in little

over three weeks after receiving an OMAP EVM. This proves that we can built and

integrate this complex technology into end products extremely rapidly, offering

customers substantially reduced costs, whilst maintaining fast time to market

and at lower risk than in-house development", Commodore C R Apte, director,

operations, told media persons.

The working demonstration currently offers synchronized video and voice

decoding. The team is currently working on adding the cryptography element by

February next year, he added. Enthused by the response from Texas Instruments,

the company hopes to get references from TI for their OEMs and in turn generate

business. Major players such as Nokia, Sendo and Palm already use the OMAP

platform. The OMAP platform also finds wide acceptance in the Japanese market.

The OMAP architecture combines two processor types in a single platform to

gain maximum benefits from each. The OMAP platform is considered to be the

future generation platform for mobile computing. Although the Intel Xscale work

is in the same combination, the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) element in OMAP

is considered to be good, requiring lower power consumption. IT offers increased

multimedia processing required by advanced and future mobile electronic

products.

Some major Japanese players have evinced interest in the voice and video

encoder to be shown on both the OMAP and Xscale platform. Pace is working

towards this objective and has planned to hold this demonstration in March next

year. An introductory visit to Docomo is also on the cards.

The company recently closed its second round of funding receiving two million

Irish pounds from International Investors Underwriters Ltd. that now holds a 20

per cent stake in the company. The next round of ESOPs have been planned in

February in the company. The company had planned funding to the tune of five

million Irish pounds and the remaining three million pounds are expected to be

infused some time in the second half of the next calendar year.