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Programmable-chip IP block boosts mobile images

Improved viewability in ambient light for portable LCD screens

Apical is a UK-based developer of image processing products; it has a technology it calls iridix that it designed to improve the viewability of images and video displayed on mobile device LCD displays by optimally adapting the image content to the display dynamic range. iridix algorithms implement a model of human perception, resulting in a displayed image that retains colour and vitality even in bright viewing conditions. In addition to delivering a visual experience closer to that of a large, bright flat-panel display, it also allows a mobile device to operate with, the developers claim, significantly reduced backlighting to extend battery life. To further improve display quality, it comes with additional image and video enhancement blocks such as dithering, hue rotation, colour correction, and non-linear sharpness filtering, among others. It preserves image detail and clarity which is lost by conventional image processing.

Programmable logic maker QuickLogic has completed a licensing deal to include iridix technology in its catalogue of pre-qualified IP, that it terms proven system blocks, as the core of a package of image-related functions called Visual Enhancement Engine (VEE). You will be able to implement VEE on multiple parts from QuickLogic’s Customer Specific Standard Product (CSSP) platform families. The iridix core has previously been used in Japanese digital still cameras (DSCs).
Designers can use QuickLogic’s programmable fabric to adapt the VEE-enabled platforms to application- and base-band processors, and display technologies commonly used in the mobile market. The autonomous nature of the VEE PSB eliminates the need for complex software algorithms to run on the host processor, and simplifies design effort on the part of the OEM/ODM, the two companies say. QuickLogic will also implement a “hard” logic implementation in the next generation of the company’s ArcticLink solution platform line, with sampling expected in Q3 2008.