MIPS' processor IP drives new hybrid media player/STB chipset from ALi

SUNNYVALE, USA: MIPS Technologies Inc. announced that Taiwan's ALi Corp. based its new system-on-chip (SoC), which is targeted for the emerging "triple play" market, on the popular MIPS32 24KEf core. MIPS32 24K cores are widely used across the globe in digital home and networking products including broadband access devices, digital TVs, set-top boxes, and digital media players.

Through triple play initiatives, telecom carriers will provide to consumers a combination of voice, digital television broadcasting and broadband internet services. To support triple play, many governments and carriers around the world are upgrading network infrastructure and broadband technology, and developing new hardware platforms.

With a hybrid design for DVB-C HD/DVB+IP dual-mode operation, the new M3701G chipset from ALi is targeted for products that support triple play services, such as the next generation of networked media players and set-top boxes.

Daniel Huang, COO, ALi, said: "As a leader in digital TV set-top box SoC chips, ALi is pleased to facilitate three-network integration. With our new chipset, we are offering our customers a scalable and flexible path to triple play success. For triple play, the performance and architecture of the SoC chips are extremely important. The 24KEf core provides high performance multimedia processing, an open architecture for Linux support, floating point design for support of value added services, and extremely efficient operation. Supported by MIPS' broad ecosystem of tools and software for the digital home, this core is the ideal choice for our new SoC."

Art Swift, VP of marketing and business development, MIPS, added: "ALi has continually shown its commitment to developing leading-edge products to drive the next-generation home entertainment experience. From being one of the first MIPS licensees to join our Early Access Program for the Android platform on MIPS two years ago, to unveiling this new hybrid networks design with support for the latest applications, the company continues to design innovative MIPS-Based products."

The M3701G chipset is available now from ALi. It includes support for MPEG-2/4, H.264, AVS (Audio Video Standard), VC-1 and VP8 decoder. It also includes a high-performance graphics acceleration Open VG v1.1 engine. It features built-in QAM, Ethernet MAC, three USB ports, HDMI, a double-tuner, and more.