2014/02/11 HEVC Decoder SoCs on the Way in 2014
By Michelle Abraham
When we last reported on the topic after IBC 2013, we looked at the HEVC decoding SoCs from three vendors with announcements at the show: Broadcom, ST, and ViXS. At CES 2014, those vendors refined their product plans and were joined by others including Sigma Designs, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Entropic, and MStar.
After announcing the BCM7445 at CES 2013, Broadcom came to CES in 2014 with a full lineup of HEVC decode SoCs, many able to decode the HEVC Main10 Profile. They do vary by resolution supported. This is the widest lineup of HEVC SoCs we have seen from any vendor. Various SoCs integrate MoCA 2.0, satellite and cable front-ends. The solutions are currently sampling.
The Entropic EN7300 series was designed for satellite set-top boxes. The SoCs will decode 1080p60 and integrate a Mali 400 GPU. The EN731x will have dual DVB-S/S2 demods while the EN730x is designed for client devices. MoCA 2.0 is an option with either SoC. The solutions will be sampling in the first quarter of 2014.
MStar’s SoC for connected TVs with resolutions up to 4K was demonstrated with Thomson and Envivio. Rovi announced that MStar had licensed the DivX HEVC technology. Also competing in the TV segment, Mediatek will offer HEVC decoder SoCs with up to 4K resolution at 60 Hz as part of the 8-series family which will also integrate a quad-core ARM processor and Mali T6 GPU. It is expected to be sampling in the second quarter of 2014. For mobile devices, Mediatek has announced the MT6592 with support for HEVC.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 processor was designed for mobile devices. It integrates the Adreno 420 GPU and Qualcomm’s Hollywood Quality Video (HQV) upconversion technology. It is expected to ship in commercial devices in the first half of 2014. The Snapdragon 802 was designed for set-top boxes, digital media adapters, and digital TVs with a quad core processor, Adreno 330 GPU, HQV, audio DSP, 802.11ac, and the ability to decode HEVC. It will sample in early 2014 with commercial production by the end of the year.
Sigma Designs will offer the SMP8750 family of SoCs capable of HEVC Main 10 profile decoding at resolutions from full HD to 4K. Part of the family, the SMP8756 supports HEVC decoding of 4K resolution with integrated single core ARM, Mali 400 GPU, and VXP display processing. It targets set-top boxes.
ST announced its Cannes and Monaco HEVC decoder SoC families at CES. Cannes is focused on client devices, while Monaco was designed for clients and servers with transcoding of up to three 720p HD streams. Both are being adjusted to support Main10 Profile at 4K p60 resolution. ST already has design wins with major operators. ST announced its next generation architecture whose chips will be in production in 2015 for commercial products in 2016. These will have 4Kp60 HEVC Main10 decoding and HDMI 2.0 with HDCP2.
ViXS XCode 6400 family of SoCs will support the HEVC Main10 Profile at resolutions to 4Kp60. The top of the line SoC has eight transport inputs for home gateway use. While the family does not yet integrate HDMI 2.0, ViXS has worked with Silicon Image on a proprietary solution to take HDMI 1.4 to HDMI 2.0. Panasonic is using the XCode 6403 in its 4K TV AX800 series. ViXS will also have professional HEVC solutions for broadcast products.
The following table shows some of the features of the HEVC SoCs that have been announced. We have attempted to present information that is as complete as possible, but some details were not available.
Table 1. HEVC SoCs Announced as of February, 2014
Source: Vendors
MRG Analysis:
It is helpful for the development of HEVC to see so many SoCs capable of decoding HEVC with production dates in 2014. Some of them are likely to be used in professional IRD products as well as set-top boxes, TVs, and mobile devices. There are lower cost options for those applications that want the reduced bandwidth but will only need 1080p60 resolutions.
Although there is limited 4K content today, those wanting to future-proof their products will want 4K at 60 fps resolution with HDMI 2.0. There is a lot of interest, particularly for live sports, in using 50 or 60 frames per second up from 25 or 30 frames per second today. HDMI 2.0 is the latest HDMI standard and the only one with enough bandwidth to handle the greater data of 4Kp60.
Another issue has also been resolved. A few weeks ago, the MPEG Licensing Authority (MPEG LA) announced the license terms for HEVC with a final agreement to come in a few months. To offer a comparison, H.264 decode products have a license fee of 20 cents per unit after the first 100K, and 10 cents per unit over 5 million, with a cap of $6.5 million per year in 2014. For HEVC, the license fee is 20 cents per unit after the first 100K with a maximum of $25 million per year. So HEVC will be more expensive than H.264 for the larger companies doing millions of units per year since the price does not drop after five million. The cap is much larger as well. There are no license fees on the content side only for the hardware.
We expect shipments of products with HEVC compression to ramp up in 2014 now that more of the pieces are in place.
