Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas' and Fisher-Price are working together at the Pixter Multi-Media portable device. The solution set includes Sharp's LH79524 System-on-Chip (SoC) and custom TFT-LCD panel, as well as design support and software from Actimagine. Pixter Multi-Media is a hand-held digital creativity system for kids. It has been re-designed to incorporate full-motion video, in addition to more than 100 built-in digital tools, games and creative activities. Children can now watch and create cartoon and live-action videos through a high performance TFT screen.

The Pixter Multi-Media hand-held device features Sharp's SoCs as the embedded platform. The ARM7-based 32-bit LH79524 SoC, part of Sharp's BlueStreak family of SoCs, provides a strategic balance of performance, integration and power efficiency to the video-capable Pixter Multi-Media. Enhanced Video Performance Sharp's LH79524 SoC is a cost-effective choice for video-intensive devices such as the Pixter, ena-bling design engineers to achieve high video performance and low power consumption with an ARM7-based device. As part of the Pixter Multi-Media design, the LH79524 supports quality streaming video without any hardware acceleration.

Sharp's LH79524 SoC for the Pixter runs Actimagine's video codec and vector graphics rendering engine that boost the video capabilities of the ARM7-based SoC. The Actimagine software contains a new compression/decompression method that is four times faster than MPEG4 - facilitating advanced video performance with lower CPU requirements and extended battery life.

Key features of LH79524

<typolist>

SoC 32-bit data bus

Onboard cache & SRAM

Supports all types of Flash Memory

programmable LCD controller

supports up to 65,536 colors

TV-like 30 frames-per-second video and vector graphics

four low-power modes

Boot from NAND Flash

Clock speed 76.2 MHz

Touch screen interactivity management

</typolist>

Sharp Microelectronics began its collaboration with Fisher-Price in 2003, providing its 16/32-bit LH75411 SoC as the embedded CPU for Color Pixter, a predecessor to the Multi-Media version. Sharp customized the high performance TFT-LCD screen to meet the specific design goals for the Pixter system. The display offers more vibrant color, enhanced contrast, and an overall better user experience than the previous Pixter model's CSTN screen. In addition to its SoC products, Sharp's support library includes a broad range of design tools and documentation, including a development kit from Logic Product Development. Sharp has also partnered with third parties to create ARM-based product development systems, soft-ware design tools and evaluation boards. This comprehensive portfolio is available via Sharp's BlueStreak Software Library.