NEWSLETTER JULY / AUGUST 2003

CRITICAL ROLE FOR IMAGES AND GRAPHICS IN EFFECTIVE MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS

As the strong development in better-equipped mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) clearly demonstrates, images and graphics play an important role in effective communications ? and are critical for Internet browsing and portable multimedia applications. Improving hardware and the underlying supporting technologies is crucial ? from better processors, larger memories and better displays to increased bandwidth or better compression techniques. Greater design automation is also essential to speed development times and so reduce time to market.
Consequently, new standards are necessary to make the most of what is available in highly mobile devices in the home and in the field while ensuring continuing interoperability with the desktop and office domain. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) rules first introduced by the World Web Consortium (W3C) in 2001 have now been made more modular and extended to meet the specific needs of easily usable hand-held devices ? from PDAs to third-generation (3G) mobile phones.

MEDEA+ projects are already involved in producing a common development environment for low-power, highly portable devices to allow terminal manufacturers to speed delivery of new products. For example, the MEDEA+ A207 Pocket Multimedia project is building a flexible multimedia development platform to combine the processing of audio, image and video signals with universal connectivity and easy linking to the Internet.

The cost-effective silicon application platform in Pocket Multimedia is based on innovative low-power multimedia architecture that combines software computing with dedicated multimedia silicon modules, including a multimedia coprocessor. Key elements include a state-of-the-art MPEG-4 compliant system-on-chip (SoC) solution, digital rights management, universal connectivity that includes universal serial bus (USB), Bluetooth wireless and cellular data transfer, and a new scaleable colour organic light emitting display (OLED). Benefits of OLED technology include a simple structure, compatibility with low-power display technology, no need for backlighting and a much faster response than liquid crystal displays (LCDs), making it ideal for light, compact and low cost applications.

Unlike the earlier MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 compression standards, which only offered audio-visual coding, MPEG-4 is dedicated to multimedia solutions.

MEDEA+ A207 also builds on expertise gained in earlier MEDEA projects, such as A116 on MPEG-4 for mobile communications, A222 on portable multimedia components and A111 on compact smart card readers.

The results of the Pocket Multimedia project will demonstrate European competitiveness in the global terminal and cell phone markets. It will provide state-of-the-art solutions to the exchange of images, graphics and video over the mobile phone network ? particularly for the fast developing multimedia message services (MMS) area. And it will speed the emergence of new applications ? for example ?virtual assistants? that are able to gather information in areas such as teaching, medicine and transport.

Another key element being developed in MEDEA+ for highly portable multimedia terminals is improved non-volatile ? or ?flash? ? memory. The MEDEA+ T123 CRESCENDO project involves the major European semiconductor manufacturers developing high-density non-volatile memory and low-cost, low-density programming elements for SoC devices in future generations of deep-submicron technologies.

In parallel, the MEDEA+ T204 ASGBT project is focusing on the use of advanced silicon germanium and BiCMOS technologies for the low- power mixed radio-frequency (RF)/ analogue chips required for leading-edge mobile phone, Bluetooth and other high-speed transmission technologies. These new chips will combine high bandwidth with low noise levels and very low power consumption, resulting in affordable terminals providing access to enhanced multimedia and data communications.

Partners in all these MEDEA+ projects continue to participate in regional and global standardisation efforts to ensure Europe remains in the vanguard of the global microelectronics market. Standardisation is particularly important in the communications and multimedia areas to ensure interoperability of communications channels and contents over both fixed and mobile platforms.