- To expand its business domain from automotive applications -
TOKYO — (BUSINESS WIRE) — February 27, 2013 — Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) today announced that it will expand its line-up of Visconti™[1] image recognition processors with the launch of the Visconti™3 series. The first device in this new series, TMPV7528XBG, is enhanced by the integration of additional processor cores to support various applications, and will extend the range of use beyond automotive systems to industrial applications. Sample shipment will start in April.
Toshiba Image Recognition Processor "Visconti(TM) 3" (Photo: Business Wire)
Toshiba initially developed the Visconti™ series of image recognition processors to advance the creation of camera-based vision systems for automotive applications. The processors recognize traffic lanes, vehicles, pedestrians, traffic signs and more and both the Visconti™2 and 3 series devices incorporate image processing accelerators that detect pedestrians with high level detection ratio in real time.
In addition to these capabilities, the Visconti™3 lowers the software-development hurdle for customers by integrating an ARM 32-bit RISC Cortex™-A9 MPCore™ (2 cores) dedicated to supporting applications interfacing with the image recognition processor.
With Visconti™3, Toshiba will seek to expand the image recognition processor business beyond automotive systems into camera-based vision systems for industrial applications. The company targets annual sales of 2 million Visconti™ image recognition processors in fiscal 2015.
Background
Advances continue in bringing driver assistance and safety systems to road vehicles. The next impetus will come in the EU, where the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) requires automobile companies to introduce autonomous braking systems next year. These will initially cover other vehicles, and will be extended to include pedestrians in 2016. Initiatives like this are expected to spur 50-100% growth in the global market for image recognition processors between fiscal 2010 and 2015, from 75 to 100 billion yen[2].
Toshiba has played a pioneering role in image recognition processors. It commercialized Visconti™ in 2004 and the improved Visconti™2 in 2011. The new Visconti™3 offers improvements in functionality, performance and software development efficiency.
Main Features
1. ARM CortexTM-A9 MPCoreTM
Upwardly compatible with the Visconti™2 series. Integration of the ARM Cortex™-A9 MPCore™ improves connectivity to car navigation systems, smartphones and cloud-based services and makes it easier for customers to implement features during software development.
2. Single/Double-Precision Floating Point Unit (FPU)
Image recognition algorithms and software in embedded image recognition processors must analyze large volumes of image data from the video source, frame-by-frame, in real time, but with limited power consumption and memory resources. Some algorithms for this are difficult to achieve without an FPU, and for this reason Visconti™3 integrates a single/double-precision FPU into each core of the ARM processor.
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Outline of New Product |
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| Part number | Sample shipment | Mass production | Product volume | |||
| TMPV7528XBG | April 2013 | January 2014 | 100,000 units a year | |||
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Main Specifications |
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| Part number | TMPV7528XBG | |||
| CPU | ARM 32-bit RISC Cortex TM -A9 MPCore TM (2 cores with Single/Double-Precision Floating Point Units) | |||
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Toshiba original 32-bit RISC CPU
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| Image recognition engine |
Toshiba's original multi-core media processor Media Processing Engine (MPE) x4 |
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| Image processing accelerators | Affine transform | 1 ch. | ||
| Filter | 2 ch. | |||
| Histogram | 1 ch. | |||
| Histogram of Oriented Gradients | 1 ch. (HOG/CoHOG features) | |||
| Matching | 1 ch. | |||
| On-chip memory |
Mask ROM: 64 Kbytes
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| On-chip peripheral functions | Video input I/F | 4 ch. | ||
| Video output I/F | 1 ch. | |||
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Main memory
controllers |
DDR2-533 SDRAM controller
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| PCI Express | 1 lane | |||
| CAN controller | 3 ch. | |||
| I2C I/F | 4 ch. | |||
| UART I/F | 5 ch. | |||
| SPI I/F | 4 ch. | |||
| PCM I/F | 2 ch. | |||
| Timer/Counter | 11 ch. | |||
| Power supply voltage | Core:1.1V, I/O:3.3V and 1.8V | |||
| Operating frequency | Max.300MHz (ARM Cortex TM -A9 MPCore TM ) /Max.266MHz (MeP, MPE) | |||
| Operating temperature | Ta = -40 ~ 85 °C, Tj = -40 ~ 125 °C | |||
| Package | Plastic BGA 516pins, 27mm x 27mm, 1.0mm ball pitch | |||
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