Video & Graphics Processors: 1997

John A. Watlington MIT Media Laboratory

May 11, 1997

This report is an attempt to assess and contrast the current state of the art in digital video and graphics processing system architectures. Although this is not meant to be a comprehensive survey, I attempted to at least quickly review most of the commercially available major architectures. At present, there is a huge amount of interest in this area, as three new markets are perceived: systems for personal (set-top) terminals, PC graphics for game and network applications, and consumer video products based around digital video disks (DVD). Due both to their proliferation, and their very limited programmability, I did not include dedicated MPEG2 video decoders and graphics accelerators limited to 2D operations (GUI accelerators) in this survey.

The surveyed systems aggregated into three distinct classes, namely:

1. Video Signal Processors (VSPs) - A programmable CPU, usually with specialized processing elements as well.
2. Graphics Architectures - Specialized processing elements, usually with a fixed interconnect (a linear array.)
3. Structured Video Architectures - Containing both a video signal processor and possibly a dedicated pipeline. Currently represented by Talisman.

A section follows for each class, describing representative systems of that class. The report closes with a subjective Commentary section, containing both comments about architectural features and a look at future scalability.

• Video Signal Processors
• Graphics Architectures
• Structured Video Architectures
• Commentary
• References