Back to Press Releases
June 5, 2006
Nethra Imaging showcases smart camera chips for digital consumer imaging applications
Sophisticated technology delivers print-quality camera phone images and real time, high definition video on PC platforms
TAIPEI, Taiwan (Computex Taipei 2006) - June 5, 2006 - Nethra Imaging, a privately held company focused on imaging solutions for consumer applications, showcases its family of programmable image processor chips at Computex Taiwan, the biggest IT show in Asia. The programmable processor family provides performance, flexibility and low power for a wide range of digital consumer applications including mobile-handset camera modules and PC Webcam applications.
"Future Image forecasts 2006 mobile phone shipments to be at least 900 million units, and exceeding our earlier predictions, we expect more than 67 percent of these mobile phones to include cameras," said Tony Henning, editor of the Mobile Imaging Report, Future Image. "Cameras in mobile phones have grown beyond their base functionality of color processing to include more sophisticated features such as image stabilization. Future features such as image analysis and recognition will require advanced image algorithms such as Nethra is addressing with its solutions."
Current digital imaging solutions rely on digital signal processors and application specific integrated circuits that were not designed from the ground up for mobile imaging applications. Nethra has developed a fully flexible and programmable solution that outperforms DSPs and ASICs in handling multi-megapixel imaging and provides added flexibility beyond the performance of ASICs. This means consumers will soon get higher resolution and longer battery life from their mobile imaging devices.
"We want to enhance the digital imaging experience for consumers, whether they—re using a camera on their cell phone, PDA or PC," said Ramesh Singh, Nethra—s president and chief executive officer. "We believe we have an innovative solution that makes Nethra the technology of choice for 3-megapixel mobile handset designs of the future and gives consumers print-quality images directly from their cell phones."
In addition, Nethra announced today a joint reference design platform with PLX Technologies that expands the company—s imaging solutions portfolio beyond mobile handset applications into the PC video capture market. The two companies— complementary strengths have yielded a reference platform intended to deliver print-quality imaging and high-definition quality video capture for sharing and transmission. For consumers, this means real time, high resolution images and video directly from their PC platforms, even in low-light situations during video conferencing.
NI-20xx product family
Nethra—s NI-20xx family of image processing system-on-chip solutions offers scalable performance to provide system designers the flexibility to meet a range of customer needs. The NI-20xx products embed software needed to tune the picture quality and system control in the embedded Flash. Mobile handset OEMs can concentrate on developing a camera application that communicates with the camera sub-system via simple I2C commands. This development approach reduces time-to-market and provides the best picture quality from the mobile-handset camera.
NI-206x products are available in both 7mm x 7mm and 8mm x 8mm packages. (NI-2060 includes 64KB of stacked Flash memory, while the NI-2061 does not have any Flash). NI-209x products are available in an 8mm x 8mm package (NI-2090 includes 2MB SDRAM and 64KB Flash; NI-2091 includes 2MB stacked SDRAM). In addition to the image processing engine, NI-20xx products include an embedded CPU, 32KB of SRAM for program execution and all system peripherals.
Camera phone architecture
Nethra has developed proprietary camera system algorithms that are used to gain high performance pixel processing at low power, resulting in the best images. By building the image processing SOC architecture to support the needs of the core pipeline, the overall chip offers optimal balance in performance, cost and power consumption. Nethra—s image processing SOCs are controlled by proprietary embedded firmware that runs the software algorithms, which execute the control loop, auto focus, auto exposure, and auto white balance. Other advanced features such as adaptive light control, enhanced night mode and electronic image stabilization are hardware enabled.
Product availability
NI-20xx products are currently shipping in volume. Contact Nethra for additional information.
About Nethra
Nethra Imaging is a privately held semiconductor company focused on delivering imaging solutions for a wide range of digital consumer applications. The company uses proprietary algorithms to build flexible, fully programmable image processor chips for mobile imaging and PC video capture applications. Incorporated in 2003, Nethra is located in Cupertino, Calif. and began full operations in January 2004. The company's leaders are a team of established entrepreneurs with a wealth of experience in imaging and silicon development. Nethra is venture-backed and entered the market in 2005 with a family of image processors for the rapidly growing mobile handset camera market. For more information, visit www.nethra.us.com.
Nethra Imaging™ and the Nethra logo are trademarks of Nethra Imaging Inc. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. © Nethra Imaging Inc. 2006.
Media Contacts
