Friday, December 9, 2011  Picking the Right Driver  We are very
excited to announce the availability of the fourth generation
G-Series 1 VP8 hardware decoder, internally codenamed “Driver”.
In this release, our focus has been on optimizing the VP8
bitstream decoder. The new architecture helps the IP run at 13%
higher operating frequency allowing the decoder chips to reach
higher frame rates or do multi-channel decoding more easily. At
the same time, the new implementation has reduced the decoder’s
logic gate count by 6% which directly cuts the production cost
of each chip incorporating a WebM hardware decoder. Furthermore,
the revamped design allows us to do even more optimizations for
the next release. With future video requirements in mind, we
designed Driver to decode up to 4k by 4k video resolutions.  To
make the IP evaluation easier for a chip company, the
deliverables now include a bit-exact decoder C-model. This
allows partners to create their own test cases for thorough
performance analysis.  Modern