Scalable Ultra-High Throughput 8/10/12-bit JPEG Decoder

The UHT-JPEG-D core from Alma Technologies is a scalable, ultra-high throughput, 8-bit Baseline and 10/12-bit Extended hardware JPEG decoder, designed to provide all the power needed in modern image and Ultra HD video compression applications. The scalability of this IP core enables highly cost-effective silicon implementations of applications that need to handle massive pixel rates and resolutions. The UHT-JPEG-D is available for ASIC or Intel, Lattice, Microsemi and Xilinx FPGA and SoC based designs.

The UHT-JPEG-D accepts the standalone and standard compliant JPEG byte stream generated by the Alma Technologies UHT-JPEG-E encoder, or other compatible¹ JPEG byte stream, and outputs the decoded data in interleaved raster scan format. It supports decoding of 4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:2:0 and 4:0:0 (grayscale) image or video streams, in 8-, 10- or 12-bit per component sample depths. The UHT-JPEG-D can be implemented using only on-chip memory resources, while using off-chip memory too is also natively supported. Designed with a user configurable architecture, the decoder scales to offer a sustained decoding throughput from 1 to 32 samples per clock cycle.

Using multiple internal processing engines, the UHT-JPEG-D offers the needed performance through its scalable parallel architecture. The input JPEG stream is split internally into chunks and each chunk is assigned to one of multiple internal decoding units. This is done in a way which is totally transparent to the system utilizing the IP, abstracting all the parallelization complexity from the rest SoC components. The number of internal decoding units is configurable before synthesis, adapting to the implementation technology speed, and non-critical resources are shared between the multiple engines.

The UHT-JPEG-D uses a single compressed data input interface and produces raster scan interleaved decoded image or video data through a single - multiple pixels - output interface. Its operation is completely standalone, without needing any host CPU or GPU power.

The UHT-JPEG-D core is designed with simple, fully controllable and FIFO-like, streaming input and output interfaces. Being carefully designed and rigorously verified, the UHT-JPEG-D is a reliable and easy-to-use and integrate IP.

IP Deliverables

Clear text VHDL RTL source for ASIC designs, or pre-synthesized and verified Netlist for Intel, Lattice, Microsemi and Xilinx FPGA and SoC devices

Release Notes, Design Specification and Integration Manual documents

Bit Accurate Model (BAM) and test vector generation binaries, including sample scripts

Self checking testbench environment, including sample BAM generated test cases

Simulation and sample Synthesis (for ASICs) or Place & Route (for FPGAs) scripts

Symbol

Features

High-Performance, Compliant and Standalone Operation

Ultra high throughput in low-end silicon using scalable and transparent parallel processing

ITU T.81 compliance¹

4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:2:0 and 4:0:0 (grayscale) image or video data decoding

8-, 10- and 12-bit per component sample depth

Single JPEG byte stream input and single - multiple pixels - raster scan interleaved output

Motion JPEG payload decoding

CPU-less, complete and standalone operation

Advanced Implementation

Up to 32 samples per clock cycle decoding

Algorithmic decoding latency of approximately 32 scan lines for 4:2:0 and 16 scan lines for all other sampling formats

Configurable full on-chip or mixed on/off-chip memories implementation

Flexible optional off-chip memory interface

Independent of external memory type

Tolerant to latencies

Allows for shared memory access

Can optionally operate on independent clock domain

Avalon-ST and AXI4-Stream compliant streaming data I/O

Trouble-Free Technology Map and Implementation

Fully portable, self-contained RTL source code

Strictly positive edge triggered design

D-type only Flip-Flops

Safe CDC transfers when using more than one clock domain

No special timing constraints required

No false or multi-cycle paths within the same clock domain

No CDC transfers that need to be constrained
(all CDC paths can be excluded)

Limitations Applying When Using a Third-Party JPEG Encoder¹

Single decoding engine operation may be needed

Single scan interleaved JPEG format only

The image dimensions declared in the SOF marker must be an integer multiple of 8

No DNL marker

Literature

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