NEC Electronics Sharpens Image Quality with Super-Resolution ASSP

The technology is also available as an intellectual property (IP) core that can be embedded into ASICs or other ASSP products, such as NEC Electronics' Enhanced Multimedia Architecture (EMMA) ASSP for digital AV devices. NEC Electronics plans to continue developing next-generation super-resolution ASSPs with increased operating frequency and expanded video output size, and by 2010, the company expects to receive orders totaling more than US$110 million for super-resolution products.

The rapid development of today's high-performance digital AV devices—from computers, digital cameras and mobile phones to DVD recorders and high-definition televisions—has left consumers with the challenge of how to view low-resolution images on their new high-definition electronic products. The new NEC Electronics ASSP successfully corrects the difference between yesterday's data resolution and today's. Now, clearer images can be achieved quickly, easily and inexpensively. NEC Electronics expects this new technology to digitize consumers' lives, helping them hold onto valuable memories previously recorded with lower-resolution technologies.

Previous image-resolution technologies used a multiframe technique to process image data, which required large-capacity external memory that made it expensive and difficult to create hardware capable of real-time processing. NEC Electronics' new technology enables very high-resolution processing with just one frame of image data. Reducing the processing load eliminates the need for expensive, external high-capacity memory, such as double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAM, thereby reducing cost and power consumption, and simplifying connections to existing systems. With standard video interfaces such as 24-bit CMOS I/O with RGB or YUV for easy connection, the super-resolution ASSP easily can be added to existing designs.

The technology enhances image data from quarter video graphics array (QVGA) resolution (320 x 240 pixels) to wide VGA (WVGA) resolution (800 x 480 pixels) for clear image display on mobile phones and car navigation systems. The technology also achieves crisp images in 1920 x 1080-pixel high-definition (HD) television broadcasts by boosting image data in the 640 x 480-pixel VGA format ordinarily used for TV broadcasts and DVD storage to 6x the resolution.

Other possible application uses for the new ASSP include shooting photos and video on lower-resolution digital cameras and other devices, and for playing them back as high-resolution images, enabling the consumer to capture more images using the same amount of memory. For example, if one gigabyte of memory is used, NEC Electronics' super-resolution technology allows about 34 minutes of video to be shot in a standard four-megabyte resolution mode, which would be similar to a 17-minute video shot using an eight-megabyte high-resolution mode. Alternatively, scanning with low-resolution sensors and rendering the image in high resolution shortens scanning time and reduces system costs.