Vivace And IGRS Engineering Lab To Develop IGRS-Compliant Multimedia Chips, Vivace Joins IGRS Home Networking Standards Effort

Vivace And IGRS Engineering Lab To Develop IGRS-Compliant Multimedia Chips, Vivace Joins IGRS Home Networking Standards Effort

May 29, 2007

Collaboration on IGRS Support in High-performance, Low
Power Devices for IGRS Smarttv, Set-top Boxes and Handheld
Media Players.


    BEIJING, May 29 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Vivace
Semiconductor, a leader in digital media processing chips,
today announced it has signed an agreement with the IGRS
Engineering Lab, Ltd. to jointly develop reference designs
based on Vivace's chips that can be used to develop
products that are compliant with the new home networking
standard.  In addition, Vivace announced it has joined the
IGRS (Intelligent Grouping and Resource Sharing) work group
and standardization effort. The innovative start-up intends
to develop the first media processing chips from a local
Chinese supplier that offer support of the emerging
protocol. Vivace, as a promoting member of IGRS, joins
close to 80 other electronics companies participating in
the China-specific effort to develop a standard way for
various devices (such as TVs, projectors, PMPs, mobile
phones, printers and digital media adapters) to communicate
and share resources over a common networking protocol.

    Under the agreement, Vivace will work with IGRS
Engineering Lab, Ltd. to jointly develop a reference design
with Vivace's media processing chips, targeting digital TV
and set-top box applications. The reference design will be
based on the company's VSP200 and VSP300 media processors,
which combine high-performance capabilities with robust
support of multiple media compression and data IO interface
standards, low-power operation, and a configurable /
field-upgradeable platform. One key enabling feature of the
Vivace chips, in addition to implementing the IGRS
media-sharing protocol, is the ability to support seamless
data connections for consistent high-quality video quality
between a DTV media center and any home or portable
devices. This enables low-power and low-cost portable video
players to perform on-the-fly decoding and display video
content in multiple media standards, and at up to 720p
(HD-ready) and 1080p (HDTV) quality. Additionally, the
VSP200 and VSP300 chips offer a highly-integrated SoC
architecture that will simplify system assembly and reduce
component counts. The system solution will offer
manufacturers significantly lowered BOM, as well less
difficulty and cost in PCB implementation due to its
processors' much lower clock rate. Vivace will supply early
samples, software, development systems and support to IGRS
and its member companies to accelerate the development of
IGRS-compliant products. 

    "It is important that we work with semiconductor
suppliers such as Vivace to implement the IGRS standard in
working silicon and demonstrate its utility in multi-device
environments," Dr. Sun Yuning, President of the IGRS
Information Technology Engineering Center. "Vivace has
demonstrated unique technical advantages with its processor
architecture, and their ability to support a variety of
standards quickly and efficiently make them an ideal
candidate to develop IGRS compliant solutions. We are
looking forward to working with them and the other IGRS
participants to develop systems that take advantage of the
potential of IGRS."

    Engineers from Vivace and IGRS Engineering Lab will
work together to extend the capabilities of its core
technology to support IGRS standard features into its
VSP200 and VSP300 processor designs. The companies have
formed a Joint Technological Committee, which will reside
in Vivace's Beijing-based Partner Application Engineering
Zone.  The committee will address the roles of future key
chip technologies to enable enhanced features under the
IGRS protocol. In addition to their initial work on
developing IGRS SmartTV solutions, the joint team will work
on an IGRS recommended media subsystem SoC and solution for
satellite device developers and manufacturers.  Support
will include DRM, data codec and command link standards to
the portfolio of support already part of the high-end parts
in the Vivace series.

    "Vivace's strategy is focused on the convergence
of digital applications in consumer electronics and that is
completely aligned with the IGRS vision," said Cary
Ussery, president and CEO of Vivace. "We are committed
to developing and supporting technology and standards that
enable convergence, both in China specifically and
throughout the world. We are pleased to be actively
participating in the IGRS specification and roadmap
process, and look forward to implementing the capabilities
in our products."

    About IGRS 

    Intelligent Grouping and Resource Sharing Working Group
(IGRS WG), supported by MII (Ministry of Information
Industry of China), was established on July 10, 2003. The
IGRS Information Industry Association (IGRS) was
established on May 2005 as a legal entity, which is
supported by Administrative Committee of Zhongguancun
Science Park.

    Intelligent Grouping and Resource Sharing Standard
(shortened form: "IGRS Standard") refers  to a
new network by defining a series of protocols. It enables
intelligent grouping, resource sharing and service
collaboration among terminal devices, to create smart
networking solutions especially for wireless environments,
to improve the interoperability among digital devices and
maximize the resource usage of each device, and to create
new collaborative application models for digital devices.
In addition, terminal unit suppliers, network operating
suppliers and network model/application suppliers will
benefit from this standard in the future. It will provide
high-quality IT and entertainment services for consumers as
well. On June 29 2005, IGRS Standard was formally approved
to be the Professional Standard, which is the first
Technical Standard of China 3C-covergence Industry. At
present, the IGRS standard proposal is in the stage of
Final Commission Draft by ISO/IEC.

    IGRS firmly believes in the "fair, open,
interoperable" cooperation model and has already
established liaisons with numerous international and
domestic standard organizations¡£IGRS is a Chinese standard
organization that has the fastest industrialization process
and the most intellectual properties. IGRS has owned 204
patents and launched many IGRS products into market, such
as IGRS TV, IGRS PC, IGRS notebook, IGRS projector, IGRS
Hi-Fi, IGRS printer, IGRS mobile phone and DMA. IGRS
Information Industry Association currently has 86 members,
which includes core companies and institutes in the field
of IT and manufacturing industry in China. Many
international companies from Japan, Korea, U.S. and Europe
have applied for membership.

    About Vivace

    Vivace Semiconductor develops high-performance,
low-power video processing chips that are optimized for the
needs of high-growth consumer market segments. Its chips
support a full range of video and audio standards, are
based on the company's proprietary ViViD(TM) Media engine
and include a complete software suite for media processing
and a fully programmable, open platform for additional
software integration. Its initial product line is aimed at
developers of portable media players and integrated digital
display/TV products. The company is based in Beverly,
Massachusetts and Beijing, China. More information can be
found at http://www.vivacesemi.com .

    Vivace and ViViD are trademarks of Vivace
Semiconductor, Inc. All other trademarks referenced belong
to their respective owners. 


    For more information, please contact:

     Ni Weixin 							
     Vivace Semiconductor 						
     Tel:   [phone]						
     Email: [e-mail]					

     Mike Sottak
     Wired Island, Ltd. 
     Tel:   [phone]
     Email: [e-mail]