02-09-2017, 10:09 AM
Rapid advances in multimedia technology, coupled with today's computing, communications and consumer-oriented media technology, are having a big impact on our everyday lifestyle. This trend is largely due to recent advances in emerging semiconductor technology VLSI and ULSI. Multimedia products need to provide high performance capabilities at low power dissipation levels in compact packages at affordable prices. The application of semiconductors, however, poses some technically contradictory problems. These technological problems can be solved using application specific IC (ASIC) technology with its ability to implement the so-called system on a chip. The many high tech gadgets that surround us today - such as laptops, car navigation systems, digital cameras, computer games and ubiquitous cell phones - owe their existence to this emerging ASIC technology. Hitachi is fully committed to the system design paradigm on a chip through the promotion of the built-in microprocessor ASIC, known as μCBIC (microcell based IC), with support for CPU cores for the series of microprocessors SuperH and H8 plus one plethora of analog circuit blocks and other intellectual property (IP) modules. Our current star product, the DRAMASIC, is also making new highways in the multimedia market. Our new standard cellular product, the HG75C series, was recently shipped and is based on state-of-the-art 0.18 μm process technology. In the future, new products with this advanced process will be published as μCBICs or DRAMASICs, or both.