Our client was a US based company, an established world leader in design and manufacturing of innovative 3D graphics solutions. This product is for home PC users who crave superior home theater experience on their computers. This next generation video-processing chip delivers higher quality and low cost PC video solutions.

The main objective of this project was to verify audio and video processing functionalities at all levels of verification from simulation to chip testing.

eInfochips’ Role:

eInfochips' role was to perform complete verification of functionalities of a multimedia chip with a team of ASIC and Embedded design engineers. The main activities were

• Studying and planning for module and chip level verification
• Developing test cases for audio, video and audio-video bit stream (AVBS) modes
• Developing self-diagnostics test cases for efficient debugging on chip verified audio streams on Palladium hardware accelerator from cadence
• Verifying NTSC & PAL video streams on Palladium hardware accelerator from cadence
• Contributing to
  • Firmware testing of the full chip
  • Verification of MPEG encoder
  • Chip and board level verification

Technical Highlights

• The first hardware-accelerated video processor with both PCI and PCI Express support
• A single low-power, low-cost chip implementation for desktop and notebook PCs
• 12-bit video encoder with hardware 3D Comb Filter
• Digital IF demodulation that improves video quality and reduces the overall solution cost by eliminating the need for expensive tuners
• Worldwide multi-standard Audio Decoder
• DVD quality MPEG-2 encoder
• Hardware Noise reduction

Conclusion:

• Hardware accelerator really speeds up simulation enabling verification of increased areas of design in lesser time
• Reusable test cases can be developed and used in all levels of verification from simulation to chip testing