News Releases

TOKYO—Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) today announced that it will expand its line-up of Visconti^TM[1] image recognition processors with the launch of the Visconti^TM3 series. The first device in this new series, TMPV7528XBG, is enhanced by the integration of additional processor cores to support various applications, and will extend the range of use beyond automotive systems to industrial applications. Sample shipment will start in  April.

Toshiba initially developed the Visconti^TM series of image recognition processors to advance the creation of camera-based vision systems for automotive applications. The processors recognize traffic lanes, vehicles, pedestrians, traffic signs and more and both the Visconti^TM2 and 3 series devices incorporate image processing accelerators that detect pedestrians with high level detection ratio in real time.

 In addition to these capabilities, the Visconti^TM3 lowers the software-development hurdle for customers  by integrating an ARM 32-bit RISC Cortex^TM-A9 MPCore^TM (2 cores) dedicated to supporting applications interfacing with the image recognition processor.

With Visconti^TM3, Toshiba will seek to expand the image recognition processor business beyond automotive systems into camera-based vision systems for industrial applications. The company targets annual sales of 2 million ViscontiTM image recognition processors in fiscal 2015.

Background

Advances continue in bringing driver assistance and safety systems to road vehicles. The next impetus will come in the EU, where the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) requires automobile companies to introduce autonomous braking systems next year. These will initially cover other vehicles, and will be extended to include pedestrians in 2016. Initiatives like this are expected to spur 50-100% growth in the global market for image recognition processors between fiscal 2010 and 2015, from 75 to 100 billion yen^[2].

Toshiba has played a pioneering role in image recognition processors. It commercialized Visconti^TM in 2004 and the improved Visconti^TM2 in 2011. The new Visconti^TM3 offers improvements in functionality, performance and software development efficiency.

Main Features

1. ARM Cortex^TM-A9 MPCore^TM

Upwardly compatible with the Visconti^TM2 series. Integration of the ARM Cortex^TM-A9 MPCore^TM improves connectivity to car navigation systems, smartphones and cloud-based services and makes it easier for customers to implement features during software development.

2. Single/Double-Precision Floating Point Unit (FPU)

Image recognition algorithms and software in embedded image recognition processors must analyze large volumes of image data from the video source, frame-by-frame, in real time, but with limited power consumption and memory resources. Some algorithms for this are difficult to achieve without an FPU, and for this reason Visconti™3 integrates a single/double-precision FPU into each core of the ARM processor.

Outline of New Product

Part number	Sample shipment	Mass production	Product volume
TMPV7528XBG	April 2013	January 2014	100,000    units a year

Main Specifications

 

Part number		TMPV7528XBG
CPU		ARM 32-bit RISC CortexTM-A9 MPCoreTM (2 cores with Single/Double-Precision Floating Point Units)
		Toshiba original 32-bit RISC CPU Media embedded Processor (MeP) x1
Image recognition engine		Toshiba's orignal multi-core media processor Media Processing Engine (MPE) x4
Image processing accelerators	Affine transform	1 ch.
	Filter	2 ch.
	Histogram	1 ch.
	Histogram of Oriented Gradients	1 ch. (HOG/CoHOG features)
	Matching	1 ch.
On-chip memory		Mask ROM: 64 Kbytes SRAM: 2080 Kbytes
On-chip peripheral functions	Video input I/F	4 ch.
	Video output I/F	1 ch.
	Main memory controllers	DDR2-533 SDRAM controller NOR Flash/SRAM controller
	PCI Express	1 lane
	CAN controller	3 ch.
	I2C I/F	4 ch.
	UART I/F	5 ch.
	SPI I/F	4 ch.
	PCM I/F	2 ch.
	Timer/Counter	11 ch.
Power supply voltage		Core:1.1V, I/O:3.3V and 1.8V
Operating frequency		Max.300MHz (ARM CortexTM-A9 MPCoreTM) /Max.266MHz (MeP, MPE)
Operating temperature		Ta = -40 ~ 85 °C, Tj = -40 ~ 125 °C
Package		Plastic BGA 516pins, 27mm x 27mm, 1.0mm ball pitch

Notes:

[1]

Visconti ^TM is a trademark of Toshiba Corporation.

[2]

Toshiba data

[3]

Cortex ^TM and MPCore ^TM are trademarks of ARM Limited.