1999-06-28 , S/IC-2073/31
Product News From Philips Semiconductors

TM-1300 multimedia processor offers a 25% increase in performance for less cost

Philips Semiconductors today announced the latest addition to the company's TriMedia™ processor family, the  TM-1300. The new media processor handles up to 6.5 billion operations per second (BOPS) and offers nearly a 40% reduction in price compared with previous TriMedia devices with equivalent performance. The TriMedia family of multimedia processors provides designers with a system-on-a-chip solution for a wide variety of digital applications, including video editing, video telephony, video security systems and advanced set-top boxes.

"The TM-1300 reaffirms Philips Semiconductors' commitment to the development of high-quality, low-cost, single-chip multimedia processing power for the ever-evolving digital market," said Cees Hartgring, vice president and general manager, TriMedia Business Line. "Manufacturers of next-generation consumer devices have a challenge to incorporate more features at a lower price. The TM-1300 is a powerful system-on-a-chip solution."

Philips Semiconductors' TriMedia processors are powered by an advanced VLIW (very long instruction word) programmable central processing unit (CPU), capable of processing up to five instructions per clock cycle and supporting a real-time operating system. Additionally, the TriMedia Software Development Environment (SDE) offers a full suite of system software tools to compile and debug code, analyze and optimize performance entirely in C/C++ programming language, which dramatically reduces development costs and time-to-market. This positions the TriMedia processor as an ideal core technology for new multimedia product designs. The TM-1300 supports the audio/video encoding and decoding, Internet browsing, Java™ Virtual Machine, system control and GUI functions needed for digital video appliances.

The TM-1300 is available in 143 MHz and 166 MHz versions. The 143 MHz device is sampling now and the 166 MHz device will be sampling in Q3 1999. Both devices will ramp into full production in Q4 1999.

Philips Semiconductors' TriMedia product group was established in 1994 and is based in Sunnyvale, California. The mission of the product group is to bring to market high-performance, programmable multimedia processor technology to power sophisticated consumer multimedia products. TriMedia's website is  www.trimedia.philips.com.

Philips Semiconductors, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is the eighth largest semiconductor supplier in the world. Philips Semiconductors' innovations in digital audio, video, and mobile technology position the company as a leader in the consumer, multimedia and wireless communications markets. Sales offices are located in all major markets around the world and are supported by systems labs. Additional information on Philips Semiconductors can be obtained by accessing its home page at  http://cdrom.semiconductors.com/.

TriMedia is a trademark of Philips Electronics North America Corporation.