MB86296 Coral PA

The new Fujitsu MB86296 "Coral PA" is an enhanced version of MB86295 "Coral P" with several new features to address high-end graphics applications in embedded automotive and industrial applications. A new PCI host interface allows high-bandwidth transfers between the host CPU and the MB86296 "Coral PA". Due to a new dual buffer architecture the PCI transfer rates could be nearly doubled compared to the previous device. Any CPU with a 32-bit PCI V2.1-compliant host interface clocked at 33MHz can be directly connected to "Coral PA" (in peer-to-peer mode, 66MHz are also possible). The device includes both master and slave functions and an internal DMA controller for multi-burst transfers of large quantities of data between all combinations of PCI data space and Coral internal areas. Additional functions provided by the host interface are general purpose IO pins and a serial interface.

The new external video input of "Coral PA" accepts data conforming to the standards RBT-ITU656, RBT-ITU601 and native RGB666 and RGB888. This allows video signals of various sources to be displayed together with generated graphics. Compared to MB86295, also pixel-accurate RGB-data can be captured and written to the internal buffer without conversion to YUV422. The video input is capable of accepting TV tuner, DVD player or camera signals in PAL or NTSC video formats. In addition, rendered graphics from any other display controller can be used as video input source. The implemented video scaling facility now allows any combinations of up- and down-scaling of pictures. With this method, picture-in-picture or full-screen mode of multimedia pictures at large resolutions can be displayed. A set of general IO pins and a serial interface are also included for simple external resource control. Other new functions of "Coral PA" include a programmable pixel-clock output delay function, an upgraded ROM for the Geometry Engine and an additional bus-clock mode for a direct 33MHz clock input from any PCI bus.

Six display layers can be used simultanously on "Coral PA". All layers can have a colordepth of 8,16 or 24 bits/pixel and can be changed in position, size and priority. The maximum logical layersize has been increased to 4096x4096 pixels.

Using the Alpha-map, specific layers can be blended smoothly together. The alpha map can be freely assigned to any of the six layers and allows the assignment of 8 bits per pixel, enabling each pixel to be mixed to control transparency to a much more defined degree. In addition, all layers can be blended at a fixed ratio of 256 levels.

One of the new featues of "Coral PA" is the dual display mode. The device can drive two connected displays individually. The displays should have the same resolution and can be attached to the "Coral PA" in one of the following ways :

• In Single Mode, the chip outputs the same contents on RGB analog and digital
• In Dual Mode, two different displays are connected on RGB analog and digital
• In Multiplexed Mode, two different displays can be connected via an external de-multiplexing logic (FPGA) which receives a multiplexed RGB digital stream from "Coral PA"'s RGB digital outputs.
  With this method, all kinds of dual display applications like rear-seat entertainment systems or dual monitor control units can be realized. In dual display mode, each layer can be programmed to appear in Display 1, 2 or both. With this method it is possible to duplicate contents (like a video picture), but also to have two individually composed pictures on the two displays.

Key features

• CMOS 0.18µm technology
• Display resolutions up to 1024x768
• Dual Display Output capability
• 6 layers of overlay display (windows)
• Alpha Plane
• Digital Video input (various formats including native RGB)
• Video Scaler (up/down scaling)
• Brightness, Contrast and Saturation Control
• I2C interface
• Geometry processor
• RGB digital output (8bit x 3)
• RGB analog output
• Includes various kinds of 2D/3D graphic acceleration functions
• Built-in alpha blending, anti-aliasing and chroma-keying
• External SDRAM or FCRAM interface @ 133MHz for up to 64MB graphic memory
• PCI 32-bit V2.1 host interface with enhanced bandwith
• GPIO inputs/outputs
• Serial interface
• Supply voltage 3.3V (I/O), 1.8V (Internal)
• BGA-256 Package
• Temperature range -40..+85 °C