NEC Electronics Announces New High Performance MPEG Decoder for Integrated Digital Televisions, Supporting Digital and Digitised Analogue Signals

-- NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723) and its subsidiaries in America and Europe, NEC Electronics America, Inc. and NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH, announced it has sampled a new MPEG decoder targeting the fast growing integrated digital television (iDTV) market. The µPD61123 supports inputs from both digital and digitised analogue signals, allowing the development of a low cost unified iDTV chassis for either CRT or FPD displays.

The µPD61123 integrates two MIPS32® 4KE™ microprocessor cores capable of delivering speeds of up to 300 MIPS each. The device also offers an improved DDR-SDRAM interface, with speeds of up to 166MHz and up to 1GB of memory volume. With the enhanced graphics engine, designers now have even more flexibility to handle advanced graphics and data manipulation. The combination of these performance-enhancing features enables outstanding speed of MHEG interactive applications, smooth operation of MHP, and integration of the standard on-screen display functions.

To provide complete support for iDTV, the µPD61123 includes an output for high-end flat panel displays. The device can simultaneously decode and output two MPEG audio streams, an essential function for support of Audio Descriptor services which are a part of DTT standards in the U.K. An embedded USB1.1 host interface permits connection to external devices such as digital cameras, and direct support for DVB-CI eliminated the need for external routing chips. Notwithstanding these functions, the device has comprehensive power management coupled with a design process optimised for low power operation.

The uPD61123 is supported by a range of software and middleware, including reference designs, evaluation systems and a full suite of high level application program interfaces (APIs) and wrappers, compatible across the whole range of NEC Electronics’ digital AV devices. API and key middleware applications, including MHEG and soon MHP, will be provided by a Europe-based support team.

Availability
Volume production is scheduled to begin in spring 2005. Availability is subject to change.

MIPS32® 4KE™ is a trademark or registered trademark of MIPS Technologies Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective trademark owners.

About NEC Electronics Corporation

NEC Electronics (TSE: 6723) worldwide specializes in semiconductor products encompassing advanced technology solutions for the high-end computing and broadband networking markets, system solutions for the mobile handsets, PC peripherals, automotive and digital consumer markets, and platform solutions for a wide range of customer applications. NEC Electronics Corporation has 26 subsidiaries worldwide including NEC Electronics America, Inc. (www.necelam.com) and NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH (www.ee.nec.de). In addition to marketing, selling and supporting NEC Electronics products to customers in their respective regions, NEC Electronics America and NEC Electronics Europe also operate local manufacturing facilities in Roseville, California, and Ballivor, Ireland, respectively. Additionally, NEC Electronics America for North America and NEC Electronics Europe for Europe are the sales and marketing channels of NEC AM-LCD and PDP modules. For additional information about NEC Electronics worldwide, visit www.necel.com.

###