Dialog Semiconductor, a provider of integrated display, audio and power management semiconductor offerings, has unveiled a real time 2D to 3D video conversion chip DA8223 for portable devices, including smartphones and tablet PCs.
The company said the device also integrates a parallax barrier screen driver that lets users view 3D content without the need for glasses.
The IC analyses each 2D video frame and creates a layered depth map, isolating foreground and background objects, and from this, each original image pixel is mapped into left and right eye pixels that, when viewed through a parallax barrier filter on the display module, renders the 3D image directly.
The DA8223 integrates the complete 3D conversion process, which means there is no extra load on the host application processor and no external memory requirement.
Dialog Semiconductor VP corporate development and strategy Mark Tyndall said using the DA8223 their customers can, without compromising battery life, create a truly unique offering; products with immediate access to unlimited 3D content.
Tyndall added, "The hardware based 2D-3D conversion technology requires virtually no software development and uses a tiny fraction of the battery and compute power of competing application processor based software-approaches."
Compatible with 3D capable displays from 3.8 inch smartphones up to 10 inch tablet PCs, the DA8223 supports still images and video at 60fps and able to display 3D content in both portrait and landscape formats in real-time.
The 5x5mm 81-ball UFBGA chip can be mounted on the PCB, between the application processor and 3D display, or on the display module as a chip-on-flex.
The company said that device samples will be available early in 2011, and expects mass production from the second half of 2011.
