Lights, Camera, Altera

Providing a low-power and quick-time-to-market solution, The folks at Altera have announced that Panasonic has selected their Cyclone III FPGAs for its P2 HD Professional-Broadcast High-Definition Camera-Recorders.

The P2 HD AJ-HPX2700 and the P2 HD Handheld AG-HPX170 are part of a new series of tapeless cameras developed by Panasonic to meet the growing worldwide demand for high-definition (HD) broadcast.

As the global market shifts to HD, it is vital for broadcasters to deliver crisp, clear picture quality. In the Panasonic P2 HD Professional-Broadcast High-Definition Camera Recorders, Cyclone III FPGAs provide HD video processing, an interface to P2 memory cards, and LCD display control. The folks at Altera say that Cyclone III devices deliver the highest ratios of memory-to-logic and DSP-to-logic of any low-cost FPGA family, which is optimal for video processing applications, such as HD cameras.

"We evaluated a number of different programmable solutions to determine which would enable us to quickly deliver cameras with the highest image quality and greatest power efficiency," said Akihito Nakatsukasa, manager of the materials and purchasing management department at Panasonic. "Cyclone III FPGAs met our strict requirements by offering the best digital signal processing performance, which allowed us to offer our customers the highest level of quality in the broadcast industry. Because the Cyclone III devices consume less power, we were also able to significantly reduce the amount of heat generated inside the camera. As a result, fewer parts were needed in the camera, which shortened development time and lowered costs."

The new P2 HD AJ-HPX2700 is a professional camera that replaces traditional tapes with high-density flash memory storage. The features simplify field production and media handling in the editing process, and increase mechanical reliability in the field.

The P2 HD Handheld AG-HPX170 is a pro-sumer camera that takes the high image quality and reliability of the AJ-HPX2700 and adds superior mobility with its compact and lightweight system.

About the Cyclone III device family
The Cyclone III family is composed of eight devices ranging from 5K to 120K logic elements (LEs), up to 4Mbits of memory and up to 288 digital signal processing (DSP) multipliers.

Built on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) 65-nm low-power (LP) process, the Cyclone III family includes devices that are qualified for commercial, industrial, and extended temperatures.

For more information about Cyclone III FPGAs, including white papers, handbooks and webcasts, visit www.altera.com/pr/cyclone3.