Argon Streams update includes HEVC Range Extensions

May 12, 2014 – Cambridge, UK – Argon Design Ltd., a leading supplier of advanced video verification solutions, has released an update to Argon Streams to include full conformance test bit-streams for the Range Extensions Draft 7 update of the HEVC Specification.

Argon Streams is a comprehensive set of test bit-streams that are generated directly from the HEVC specification to ensure full coverage and complete verification of all aspects of the standard, including all the obscure, but perfectly legal, corner cases that many other bit-streams overlook.

This update to Argon Streams includes full test coverage for Main, Main 10, Main 12, Main 10 4:2:2 and Main 12 4:2:2. It also includes patched versions of two HEVC reference decoders; HM-11.0 without range extensions and HM-14.0 with the recently released RExt-7.0 range extensions.

By accurately measuring the test coverage directly against the specification, Argon Streams has been optimized to reduce both the size of each bit-stream and the quantity of test bit-streams, which in turn dramatically reduces simulation time. Argon Streams includes an interactive coverage report to give a detailed view of:

• coverage statistics for every equation and part of equation
• tooltips to show exactly which streams are used to test each equation
• maximum and minimum values for each parsed and computed variable
• coverage statistics for every CABAC transition
• coverage statistics for every value of every CABAC decoded symbol
• theoretical and observed ranges for data in the pixel processing pipeline

Alan Scott, CEO of Argon Design, says, “A number of our Argon Streams customers have been waiting for this update and they are delighted that we can respond so quickly to the release of this new version of the HEVC specification.”

About Argon Design

Argon Design Ltd., based in Cambridge, UK, is a leading provider of HEVC/H.265 design solutions. As a design services company specializing in video and multimedia systems, Argon Design have developed an industry standard compliance test suite, Argon Streams, to meet the demanding verification needs of marketing leading IP and IC developers.

Visit http://www.argondesign.com/streams.

About ChipStart

ChipStart is a semiconductor intellectual property and design services company based in Palo Alto, California. ChipStart provides sales, marketing and design support engagement solutions for companies that provide third party semiconductor IP, high quality pre-verified subsystem solutions, and support design services for ASIC and fabless semiconductor companies. ChipStart’s solutions are used as critical components of communications, consumer and computing products including switches, routers, modems, cellular phones, set-top boxes, HDTVs, DVD players and PCs.