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NeoMagic's®
MiMagic™ 6 Applications Processor Delivers the Highest
Multimedia Performance for Mobile Phones and Wireless PDAs
Unique
Massively Parallel Architecture Enables Superior Image Processing,
MPEG-4 Video and 3D Graphics in a Low Power Environment
San Jose, Calif., June 17, 2003 -- Embedded
Processor Forum -- NeoMagic Corporation (Nasdaq: NMGC), a
pioneer in Applications Processors for multimedia-rich mobile
phones, wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other
mobile handheld systems, today introduced its MiMagic 6 Applications
Processor. The MiMagic 6's multimedia engine, based on a proprietary
technology called Associative Processing Array (APA) can execute
more than one billion operations per second at a processor
clock rate of only 100MHz (megahertz). The MiMagic 6 provides
an order of magnitude more processing than competitive solutions
at the same clock rate, giving it the highest multimedia computing
performance of any Applications Processor available today.
"Multimedia
functionality has become an important feature for handhelds.
Chip designers must deliver multimedia performance without
increasing power consumption," said Max Baron, principal
analyst at Microprocessor Report, In-Stat/MDR. "The APA
core in MiMagic 6 processes multimedia workloads by employing
programmable parallel processing. The core's programmability
can be used to track evolving standards and adopt new ones.
I find the idea of employing low power massive parallelism
in handheld applications interesting and compelling."
"Integrated
multimedia services, powered by Applications Processors, have
the potential to fuel growth and utilization of existing mobile
networks and drive the rollout of enhanced third generation
cellular services," said Tony Massimini, chief of technology
at Semico Research. "In a recent report, Semico forecasted
that the Applications Processor market will reach $5 billion
by 2007. Innovative solutions such as NeoMagic's MiMagic 6
will help drive this aggressive ramp."
The
Multimedia Challenge
As multimedia requirements on mobile phones and wireless PDAs
grow to include applications such as digital imaging, two-way
MPEG-4 video and interactive gaming with 3D graphics acceleration,
manufacturers are struggling to deliver compelling multimedia
performance within a reasonable battery life. Today's RISC-based
architectures may add special-purpose hardware accelerators
to process specific multimedia tasks. These architectures,
however, are generally inflexible, with only a fixed set of
multimedia features. Additionally, they don't scale to meet
the market's rapidly developing multimedia computational needs
at low power consumption. In response, some semiconductor
suppliers have integrated co-processors, such as DSPs, on-chip
with a RISC CPU. When scaled to achieve higher performance,
this approach proves power hungry and ill-suited to work well
within the constraints of the handheld world.
NeoMagic's
Differentiator: APA Technology
NeoMagic created the APA-based multimedia engine used in the
MiMagic 6 as an alternative to the less scalable architectures
available today. It employs a massively parallel single-instruction,
multiple-data (SIMD) architecture which operates on 512 data
words per clock cycle. This parallelism results in very high
performance for multimedia algorithms -- which tend to have
a high degree of parallelism in their data -- without higher
clock rates.
A
major problem associated with traditional sequential Load/Store
computing architectures is the need to move data from a local
cache memory into the processing unit and back. Excessive
data movement results in both power consumption and performance
issues. APA's unique parallel architecture merges processing
and memory together into a single structure thereby reducing
power consumption through lower clock rates and reduced data
movement.
"NeoMagic
is redefining what an Applications Processor can do within
a low-power budget," said Prakash Agarwal, president
and CEO of NeoMagic. "Conventional wisdom has been to
handle complex processing by increasing processor clock rate.
But increasing megahertz means burning more power without
necessarily adding functionality," continued Agarwal.
"The MiMagic 6 provides high performance, low power and
additional multimedia capabilities. We believe it will transform
the power/performance equation in the handheld market,"
concluded Agarwal.
The
concepts of associative processing have been known for over
a decade, and have been used in highly demanding robotic vision
and aerospace applications. NeoMagic is the first company
to apply this technology to consumer-oriented Applications
Processors.
MiMagic
6 Specifications
The MiMagic 6 is the first member in NeoMagic's family of
ARM-based Applications Processors to incorporate the APA-based
multimedia engine. The MiMagic 6 includes a 200MHz ARM926EJ
processor with 16KB instruction cache, 16KB data cache, and
a tightly-coupled memory (TCM), as well as Jazelle hardware
Java acceleration for broad compatability with popular operating
systems and software. In order to move data into and out of
the device efficiently, the MiMagic 6 incorporates a unique
dual external memory bus to minimize contention between CPU
instruction and data fetches. It also has multiple layered,
concurrent internal busses to provide for high internal data
bandwidth. The MiMagic 6 includes an embedded 1.7 megabit
internal SRAM for video and graphics frame buffer; a dedicated
hardware block that pre-processes camera input; a 2D graphics
engine implementing BitBLT rasterops to improve GUI performance;
dual video overlay blocks, and numerous input/output (I/O)
devices such as UARTs, USB, and memory card controllers.
The
MiMagic 6 comes in a 13 x 13 x 1.2 mm very small ball grid
array (BGA) package. Samples will be available in the third
quarter of 2003, with production deliveries priced below $18
at unit quantities above 10,000 pieces.
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Note to Editors: Photo available.
About
NeoMagic
NeoMagic
Corporation, based in Santa Clara, California, enables new
generations of handheld systems with Applications Processors
that are designed to offer the lowest power, smallest form-factor
and best multimedia features and performance for mobile phones,
wireless PDAs and other handheld devices. The Company is a
pioneer in the integration of complex logic, memory and analog
circuits into single-chip solutions. Information on the company
may be found on the World Wide Web at
www.neomagic.com.
NeoMagic
and the NeoMagic circle logo are registered trademarks, and
MiMagic is a trademark, of NeoMagic Corporation. ARM and ARM9
are trademarks of ARM Limited. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners. NeoMagic disclaims any
proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.
Contact:
Willa McManmon
Director, Corporate Communications
NeoMagic Corporation
408-486-3955
wmcmanmon@neomagic.com
Emilio Dabul
Fusion Public Relations
212-651-4216
emilio.dabul@fusionpr.com
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