Panasonic Announces First Single-Chip LSI

Panasonic said it has developed the industry’s first Blu-ray Disc player single-chip signal processing LSI (large-scale integration). The new chip is half the size of earlier designs and the firm said uses about a quarter less energy than previous chips. It is compliant with Blu-ray’s emerging BD-Live (Profile 2.0) standard.

Until now, Blu-ray Disc players required separate front- and back-end LSI, as well as seven external memory chips.

The single chip uses Panasonic’s proprietary UniPhier platform and supports all HD video/audio formats, including lossless. The upgraded chip also supports dual-screen output (necessary for potential 3D imaging).

Panasonic has not yet announced its plans for mass-producing the single chips.