Fujitsu Claims First 1394 Automotive IC for HD Video

The MB88395 does this by using a high-speed 800Mbps physical layer as well as Fujitsu’s proprietary SmartCODEC, which provides high compression and can transmit HD video without perceptible lag. This not only brings the rich HD experience to rear-seat entertainment, but lowers the system cost of in-vehicle multimedia networks by up to 30%, and the number of wire harnesses (cables) by up to 70%, thus reducing vehicle weight and improving fuel efficiency.

Increasing attention is being paid to 1394 Automotive for in-vehicle multimedia networking and it is expected to become commonplace in the automotive market. The reasons for this include the gradual shift to digital TV in each country, the increased availability of HD content, as well as the ceasing of analogue output from Blu-ray players from 2013. These factors make 1394 Automotive necessary to satisfy the expected flood of digital transmissions across in-car networks. Anticipating the future requirements of rear-seat entertainment systems, Fujitsu led other vendors in introducing 1394 Automotive controllers in 2005. This new controller, co-developed with Fujitsu VLSI, allows more HD video content to be viewed easily and flexibly throughout the vehicle.

This technology is supported by Yuji Kawaguchi, Operating Officer of Honda R&D Co., “Honda R&D welcomes the MB88395, the first IC to provide the 800Mbps speeds of the 1394 Automotive specification. The importance of high-speed digital transmissions will increase further in the future to handle in-vehicle multimedia as well as to reduce weight. 1394 Automotive is an in-vehicle network that can enrich entertainment and comfort. We plan to promptly evaluate the MB88395.”

Key to the MB88395’s capabilities is its physical layer, which is compliant with the 800Mbps set out in the 1394 Automotive specification and is double the 400Mbps of the previous product. This is combined with the latest version of Fujitsu’s SmartCODEC compression codec for video, which has an even higher compression ratio, compressing video to 1/4 of its original size - compared to 1/3 of the previous product. The SmartCODEC, developed by Fujitsu Laboratories and used in the BT.601 Transport Over IEEE-1394 standard, can compress and decompress high-resolution video in 2-3ms without any perceptible time lag or out of sync contents, which can be a problem when watching the same contents on the front and rear-seat monitors.

These features make the MB88395 the first IC in the world to allow multiple streams of HD video and navigation images over 1394 Automotive. For example, an HD video stream (1,280 dots x 720 lines) from a Blu-ray DVD that has been decompressed has a rate of 885Mbps. With subsequent compression to 1/4 using to the SmartCODEC, the rate becomes 249Mbps, so two channels can be transmitted in the 800Mbps bandwidth, which was not possible over 400Mbps products.

Fujitsu plans to expand its line-up of 1394 Automotive ICs further to handle the increasing information streams in vehicles, such as video content and peripheral cameras, as well as to drive further reductions in system costs. These in-vehicle networking chips complement Fujitsu’s strong presence in automotive ICs for processing graphics and video.

Fujitsu Microelectronics will be speaking about, and presenting a demo of this product at the 1394 Automotive Tech seminar to be held in Detroit, USA, April 30, 2009.