Global Unichip Introduces H.264 Total Solution Verified on GPrime Platform

Low Power Consumption Fits Portable Devices

Hsinchu, Taiwan-August 3, 2006 - GUC (Global Unichip Corp.), a leading SoC design foundry, today announced the availability of the H.264 encoder and decoder IP solution. This solution has been fully verified on GUC’s GPrime/UMVP-2000 AMBA-based Platform, which is composed of H.264 synthesizable RTL cores, AHB wrapper, video output module, and AV-Sync. GUC’s H.264 total solution aims to facilitate customers’ SoC designs on a variety of portable consumer electronics products.

With pure hardwired design, GUC’s H.264 total solution features high performance with low power consumption. And it makes GUC’s H.264 solution best fit in with specs of portable devices with video applications, such as mobile phones, digital cameras, and multimedia players. GUC’s H.264 solution is also ideal for video applications of surveillance systems, video conferencing, streaming video like DVB-H and IP TV.

“GUC has been developing innovative multimedia solutions ever since,” said Jim Lai, president and COO of Global Unichip Corp. “By introducing this cutting-edge technology of H.264 total solution, GUC’s team again committed to delivering the most advanced SoC design service.”

H.264 provides good video quality at low bit rates. Known as a new-generation video compression and decompression technology, H.264 achieves MPEG-2/DVD video quality at 2Mbit/s whereas DVD needs 6Mbit/s. GUC’s H.264 solution meets the standard of Baseline Profile and levels 1 to 3, with the support of image resolution up to 720x576 (D1), bit rates up to 8Mbit/s, and frame rates up to 30frames/s at 60Mhz system clock. It features I (Intra) and P (Predictive) slices, intra prediction mode, quarter pixel precision, various block size, multiple reference frames, context-adaptive variable-length coding (CAVLC), 4 x 4 integer transform, in-loop de-blocking filter, interlace, etc.

GUC’s H.264 encoder and decoder IP solution has been fully verified on the GPrime/UMVP-2000 AMBA-based Platform and expects to help customers accelerate Time-to-Tapeout and Time-to-Market for their video-related SoC designs. The available design kit includes FPGA development platform, Datasheet, Netlist Code, Simulation Model, and Test Patterns.

About GPrimeTM Platform

GPrimeTM Platform is an AMBA-based IP/SoC verification platform which validates GUC’s proprietary IPs and third-party IPs. GPrime™ has integrated and verified reusable and expandable IPs—such as ARM testchip, JPEG, MPEG4, H.264, USB1.1/2.0 DC/OTG, Ethernet, TV Encoder, and AMBA Peripherals, on this robust platform running on Linux OS. Customer can easily use GPrimeTM as the fundamental SoC design platform for system prototyping.

About Global Unichip Corp.

Global Unichip Corp. (GUC), a dedicated one-stop, full service SoC (System On Chip) Design Foundry, was founded in 1998 at Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan. GUC provides total solutions from silicon-proven IPs to complex time-to-market SoC design, production, and testing services. With state of the art EDA tools, advanced methodologies, and experienced technical team, GUC ensures the highest quality and lowest risks to achieve first silicon success. Besides, GUC delivers a one-stop turnkey solution via its partnerships with TSMC and world-class assembly and testing houses. GUC has established a global customer base throughout Greater China, Japan, Korea, North America, and Europe. Its track-record in complex SoC designs has brought benefits to customers in time to revenue at the lowest risk. With TSMC as the major shareholder, GUC has close and complimentary relationships with other key packaging and testing partners to be further committed to presenting the most advanced and the best price-performance silicon solutions. For more information, please visit http://www.globalunichip.com