Offering Development Environment to Advance Stream Processing Applications In the Full-HD Era
SpursEngine is a co-processor that integrates a hardware codec for full HD encoding and decoding of MPEG-2 and H.264 streams with four SPEs derived from Cell/B.E. These advanced processing elements offer high performance media streaming capabilities, with a clock frequency of 1.5GHz, while achieving a low power consumption range of 10W to 20W.
"We are very pleased to have started sample shipping of the SpursEngine," said Yoshio Masubuchi, Director of Toshiba's System LSI Division, Advanced SoC Development Center. "The design of this powerful co-processor is dedicated to bringing the advanced capabilities of the Cell/B.E. to consumer electronics, particularly video processing in digital consumer products. We are sure that SpursEngine will accelerate the market for full-HD applications."
Toshiba will support developers working on SpursEngine applications with a comprehensive reference kit that includes a reference board and essential middleware APIs. The reference board has a PCI-Express edge connector that can connect to an x1 layer slot in a PC. Toshiba will also provide an integrated development environment (SPE compiler, SPE debugger and performance monitor) and sample applications that demonstrate how to use the provided middleware. With the reference kit, customers can quickly and easily construct an evaluation and development environment and accelerate product development.
Toshiba will further boost the performance and cut the power consumption of the SpursEngine to support further innovation in products offering new levels of functionality.
Co-operation between Toshiba and the SpursEngine(TM) SE1000 Partnerships
Toshiba is developing co-operative relationships with many partner companies in order to develop wide scope video solutions that utilize the SpursEngine. For example, Toshiba is partnering with Corel Corporation, whose headquarters are in Canada, and Taiwan-based CyberLink Corporation and Leadtek Research Inc. These companies produce popular video and image processing software and hardware, such as graphic boards, and will together supply to set manufacturers. By working together with these companies and creating a new value chain, many end users can enjoy a comfortable digital life by using partner boards and software bundled with the SpursEngine.
Outline of SpursEngine(TM) SE1000
Product Number BXA32110XBGN
Sample Shipping April 2008
Processor SPE 4 core
SPE Fully compliant with Cell/B.E.(TM) SPE Instruction
Set SIMD RISC/Single & double -precision
floating-point arithmetic /DMAC/MMU
Memory Interface (XDR(TM) DRAM) 128MB(512Mbit x2), Physical
Bandwidth of 12.8GB/s
Hardware Video Codec Full HD Capable MPEG2 Encoder and Decoder
Full HD Capable H.264 Encoder and Decoder
PCI-Express I/F x1, x4
PCI-Express Compliant with Base Specification
Revision
1.1
Outline of SpursEngine(TM) Reference Kit
Product Name SpursEngine SE1000 Reference Kit
Model BXK005000
Main Engine Processing Maximum 48GFlops
SpursEngine SE1000 Performance 12GFlops/1SPE
Element Core SPEx4
Operating Frequency 1.5GHz
Registers 128bit x 128/1SPE
Hardware Internal Memory Local Storage
256KB/1SPE
Endpoint
Host Interface 1 lane link support
Functions Compliant Base
PCI-Express specification,
Revision 1.1
Memory Physical Bandwidth 12.8GB/s
XDR(TM)DRAM Memory Size 128MB
Basic software, libraries and tool chain for host and
Software SPE program development.
Sample applications for user programs.
* XDR(TM) DRAM is a trademark of Rambus Inc. in the United States and
other countries.
* SpursEngine(TM) and the logo are trademarks of Toshiba Corporation.
* Cell Broadband Engine(TM) and Cell/B.E.(TM) are trademarks of Sony
Computer Entertainment Inc.
Web site: http://www.toshiba.com/taec/