Sarnoff Video Processing Technology Now Available As Silicon IP Cores for Integrated Circuits

Advanced Video Manipulation Functions for Cameras, Other Uses Are Now Part of Sarnoff Silicon Strategies IP Portfolio

PRINCETON, NJ (January 30, 2003)— Sarnoff Corporation, the Princeton, NJ-based pioneer in semiconductors, television, and digital video, today announced that it has made the company’s advanced vision-based video processing technology available to System-on-Chip (SoC) designers and manufacturers as intellectual property (IP) cores. The new cores represent a major addition to the company’s Sarnoff Silicon Strategies IP suite.

The newly available IP can add a number of industry-leading, real-time video manipulation capabilities to ICs for camcorders and other digital video products, including

• video stabilization to sub-pixel precision
• up to 4X digital zoom
• motion detection and tracking
• image sharpening and multi-frame noise reduction
• mosaicing to build panoramic images from successive frames
• depth estimation

The cores have low gate counts and draw low power, permitting easy and economical implementation of features to create custom video solutions. “Sarnoff’s Advanced Video Manipulation IP captures the benefits of our high-end professional security and surveillance technology,” said William Mayweather, Senior Director, Silicon Intellectual Property. “These features and functions are available as silicon-proven IP cores for use in SoC designs. With today’s smaller circuit geometries these highly complex computational functions are now easily added to a chip, for improved functionality and performance without a big hit in size or cost.”

The cores can handle parallel video data paths of 100M pixels/sec, to enable such demanding operations as real-time, perfectly registered fusion of infrared and visible-light images. They can also deliver extended depth of field through focus fusion across multiple frames, as well as extended dynamic range within a video. The cores are available under non-exclusive licensing agreements. Sarnoff can also assist clients in implementing the IP within a specific architecture, and in transitioning finished designs to a foundry.

More information is available on-line at www.sarnoff.com/silicon_strategies .

About Sarnoff
Sarnoff Corporation (www.sarnoff.com), a subsidiary of SRI International, creates and commercializes electronic, biomedical and information technology for clients worldwide. Founded in 1942 as RCA Laboratories, it produces innovations in such areas as integrated circuits, lasers, and imagers; computational drug discovery and drug manufacture and delivery; digital TV and video; vision processing software and hardware; high-performance networking; and wireless communications. Its history includes the development of color TV, the liquid-crystal display, the disposable hearing aid, and a leadership role in creating the new U.S. digital and HDTV standard. Sarnoff also founds new companies to bring its technologies to market. Twenty such companies are in various stages of development.