MB86298 "Ruby"

Featuring superior input and output functionality, the MB86298 can process 4 input video streams while outputting video to 4 displays. The input videos can be modified, synthesized together, and put on 3D graphics surfaces within a single screen. Subsequently, with 4 cameras mounted on all sides of the automobile (front, back, left, and right), it is possible to freely choose the desired viewpoint and form for display. In addition, the controller’s industry-leading capabilities enable display of 8 layers and inter-layer blends, where each information stream is processed separately so that users can selectively change the information screen to be displayed, as well as being able to synthesize the information streams together smoothly and display them.

In recent years, the amount of electronics in automobiles has continued to rise, providing information and entertainment to the driver and passengers, bringing about increased safety, more comfort and reduced environmental impact to the driving experience: for example, car navigation systems that change with real-time traffic information, video from blind-spot cameras, streaming TV and DVD video to passenger seat displays, and so-called 'eco-drive' functions which support low fuel consumption by displaying information of the car’s running condition.

There are increasing needs to simultaneously show several video and image streams to several displays within the automobile, such as showing different images to the driver’s seat and front passenger seat (dual-view LCD displays), and viewing TV and DVDs on the rear seat displays. At the same time, automotive infotainment systems that capture and display information of the vehicle’s periphery from several cameras mounted on the vehicle have emerged. Subsequently, such automotive systems demand high-performance graphics SoCs that can process in real-time several different images and video streams, and process such large volumes of imaging data at high-speed.

On a single chip, this new MB86298 controller contains the necessary functions demanded for next-generation automotive infotainment systems, providing high-speed video and graphics processing to handle an industry first of 4 video inputs, and output to 4 displays. This controller can not only realize systems which show navigation images to the driver - while showing TV and videos to the passenger displays - as previously possible, but can also process and display the dashboard instrument cluster in 3-D graphics, including meter needles. In addition, the controller can handle the inputs from 4 cameras (front, back, left, right) mounted on the vehicle and process them and synthesize them together in real-time. Also, for car navigation 3D mapping, this controller can output to high-resolution 1,600 x 600 pixel displays to bring out rich image detail, not just of the roads, but of surrounding buildings and scenery.

Four video capture inputs and output to 4 displays:

It is possible to output 2 screen images to each of 2 display ports - for each screen image, 8 levels and inter-layer blends can be displayed. Therefore, on top of a map of the surroundings, explanation notes can be overlaid, as well as an overlay of images of the surroundings from the vehicle cameras. In such cases, the outline of cars is extracted and overlaid, so it is like the overlaid image blends into the background image of the surroundings. Dither and gamma correction functions are included, offering high-quality imaging on displays of varying resolutions and color characteristics. Furthermore, the 4 video inputs enable various video inputs to undergo simultaneous processing. Inputs up to resolutions of 1,280 x 720 pixels can be handled, and functions are included for enlargement/reduction, and conversion of interlace format - suitable for motion - to progressive format which has less noise.

Industry-leading high-speed, high-resolution rendering:

Features top-class rendering performance, providing real-life maps with minute detail and smooth rendering. As graphics memory, 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM is used - it is possible to display several layers of display data on top of each other at high resolutions. The controller also contains a unified programmable shader that is capable of very-high-speed operations, which can render highly textured and detailed surfaces, such as the metallic surfaces of a car body, in life-like detail. With such high rendering performance, this controller can output in real-time to high-resolution 1,600 x 600 pixel displays, to bring out rich image detail.

OpenGL® ES2.0 graphics acceleration:

The MB86298 graphics controller contains an acceleration function for OpenGL® ES2.0, making it simpler to construct an in-vehicle entertainment environment. Also, Fujitsu Microelectronics plans to provide OpenVG™1.0 support for smooth enlargement/reduction of characters and straight or curved lines.

Key features

CMOS 90nm technology
New 2D/3D graphics engine with general purpose, programmable Unified Shader including support for OpenGL shading language with shading language compiler (SL Compiler)
Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) and high-performance copy and blend blit operations by separate hardware unit (PixBlt unit)
Full hardware support of ROP2 and ROP3 raster operations
Two display controllers with maximum resolution of e.g. 1280x1024 or 1600x600 pixels (for details please refer to the Hardware Manual), dual display signal output and combined output for dual view displays
8 layers of overlay per display controller, 4 alpha planes, constant alpha value or alpha from pixel data available for blending on each layer dithering and Color Look-Up-Table for gamma correction
Four independent digital video capture channels that can operate in parallel - specific combinations of DRGB888, DRGB666 and ITU-R BT.656 signals - with adaptive de-interlacing (still image detection) and up-/downscaling
Supported video input resolutions: ITU-R BT 601/656, DRGB 888 (up to 1280 pixel horizontal resolution) and SMTPE 296M (1280x720/60p, 1280x720/59.94p, 1280x720/50p)
Frame-rate conversion
Video texturing (e.g. for warping applications)
Write-back of display output to video memory
Brightness, contrast, saturation control for video
Built-in chroma-keying
PCI Express Host Interface (1 lane TX/RX) – requester and completer functionality
Big/Little endian swapping
External interrupt output
32/64 bit external DDR2 SDRAM interface (up to DDR2-800)
I2C Master functionality
GPIO: 8 pins with edge detection interrupts
Spread-Spectrum Clock Generation
TEBGA-543 package
Temperature range -40 to +85°C