Cirrus Logic licenses CompCore's MPEG-1

Electronic News, July 25, 1994 by Jim DeTar

SUNNYVALE, CALIF. - Cirrus Logic last week said it has licensed MPEG-1 core technology from CompCore Multimedia Inc., a startup company here that claims to have developed decode algorithms enabling new embedded ASIC implementations.

Also said to be in discussions with CompCore are multimedia system vendor 3DO and Zilog. CompCore said it is negotiating with several other companies as well. CompCore CEO George T. Haber said "We have five licensees and four other companies are very close to closing."

CompCore's Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) technology will be used in various Cirrus' multimedia controller solutions. Cirrus said that CompCore's MPEG-1 technology will help it move closer to its goal of a complete cost-effective multimedia solution for the PC.

In exchange for license fees of $500,000 and royalties between six and seven percent, CompCore granted to Cirrus a perpetual, worldwide non-exclusive and non-transferable license to implement CompCore technology in its hardware and software.

"The integration of CompCore's MPEG technology into the PC is the key to low cost, high quality video solutions," said Douglas J. Bartek, president of Cirrus Logic's User Interface Co. "CompCore has an innovative solution that provides a variety of integration options due to its optimal design."

CompCore's MPEG solution is based on an approach that reduces the number of required logic gates and memory. The size of the CompCore System and Video Decoder is approximately 10,000 basic gates and it decodes any MPEG-1 compliant system and video bitstream. The CompCore decoder can be synthesized in any 0.8-micron ASIC technology.

Compcore, a privately-held company founded in 1993, said its MPEG-1 algorithms support SIF resolution images at 30 frames/s. While Compcore is initially licensing MPEG-1 technology, it also is working on MPEG-2 solutions. The company said its algorithms require 40,000 gates plus RAM for MPEG-2 video.

The CompCore MPEG-1 system and video decoder is said to separate all audio, video and private bitstreams, and does not require an external CPU or microcontroller because the decoder understands' all MPEG-1 syntax, and programming is done through the MPEG-1 bitstream. Among the additional features: supports simple and double buffering, and supports special features like skip-frame, fast forward, stop, repeat-frame, slow-motion, frame-by-frame and freeze.

Mr. Haber said CompCore's licensing agreements cover a wide spectrum of companies. -We've covered all markets in the semiconductor industry. We have licensed to one company that is strong in the games area, as well as set-top boxes. We are near announcing we have licensed to another company that is strong in set-top boxes as well. And Cirrus is strong in the graphics and VGA card industries. The beauty of selling the design is that Cirrus can take our core and put other things around it and create a complete multimedia solution. With our solution, you can take our core and take out the data from it exactly in the format you want, plus integrate around it your post-processing, or your blending with other VGA images or your audio. It just opens you to total flexibility."

There is a revolution taking place in the way hardware is designed, according to Mr. Haber. "What is happening in hardware is the same thing that happened in software. What the PC did for software allowed Joe Blow to create software and allowed it to be distributed widely. EDA software has gotten to the point where small companies can design hardware that way. We started the company on a PC and finished the product on a PC. It's like desktop publishing in the publishing field. It is democratizing the business."

Mr. Haber was formerly at Sun Microsystems and designed the floating point block for the Sun SuperSPARC; he said he was responsible for integration of the entire chip. in addition, he was also responsible for graphics on the upcoming Sun implementation of the Ross Technology HyperSPARC chip, which will include a new graphics instruction set.

In addition to Mr. Haber, CompCore's executive lineup includes: Sorin Cismas, CTO, who was formerly at LSI Logic and was part of the team that did the compression component of the Sony game machine chip from LSI; Leo Vainsencher, VP of engineering, was also at LSI Logic and designed the graphics engine on the Sony's machine; and Sorin Papuc, chief software engineer, who came from Visionnaire, where he was involved in developing scanner document/image processing technology.

A 3DO spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny last week that the company has licensed CompCore's technology, and 3DO executives were not available for comment. 3DO last year unveiled its strategy to aggressively promote its graphics/animation technology into the set-top box market. Earlier this year, 3DO announced it has become a member of VOST, the Video Electronics Standards Association Set Top Special Interest Group, along with 60 other companies including Apple, AT&T, Brooktree, Compaq, General Instrument, Goldstar, HP, IBM and SGS Thomson (EN, May 30).