Upstart aims to bring HD camcorders to the masses

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The founders already have experience in video and the multicore chips. Before becoming CEO at Ambarella, Wang was chief executive at Afara, a multicore chip designer that got scooped up by Sun Microsystems.

Sun Microsystems this month unfurled its UltraSparc TI chip with eight cores that was largely derived from an Afara design. Les Kohn, Ambarella's CTO, served as chief technology officer of Afara. (Before Afara, Kohn worked at Sun and was one of the architects behind the UltraSparc I).

"Kohn's widely credited with the concepts behind the UltraSparc T1," said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at Insight 64. "He's a pretty sharp guy."

DeGall, meanwhile, served on the MPEG-video standards body from 1988 to 1995.

Ambarella's basic chip contains a separate processing core for video designed by the company. System management functions are handled by an integrated ARM processor. Integrated interfaces then connect the core chip to an imager (the chip that captures light from the outside world), LCD (liquid crystal display) screens and other peripherals.

So far, the company plans to release three versions. The A199 will provide full HD recording capabilities. It runs at 216MHz and burns about 1 watt. The A150, which also runs at 216MHz, provides resolutions more akin to standard TV and will be aimed at digital still camera makers. The A100, meanwhile, runs at lower speeds but consumes less power.

Ambarella was founded in February 2004 and released its first sample chips in October 2005. Financial backing comes from venture firms Walden International, Benchmark Capital and Matrix Partners. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the giant foundry, has agreed to manufacture the chip on its factory lines.

The name, by the way, has nothing to do with Jane Fonda in a space-age bathing suit. Ambarella is a type of fruit tree that grows on Pacific islands halfway between Asia and North America. Ambarella splits its operations between the U.S. and Taiwan.

[losjackal]

Tape is on its way out?

Tape is the only way I know of to store native DV-quality footage. Everything else compresses it, which then makes it harder to edit.

I understand the convenience factor of already-burned DVDs and hard-drive based storage, but tape also offers the ability to keep the raw footage. Tapes may fall out of favor with mainstream consumers, but they can't disappear entirely until some other medium offers these benefits.

[Techno Guy]

RE: Tape is on its way out

The claim that "tape is on its way out" is _way_ off. This claim can only hold up if one lumps digital still cameras into the total, and most still cameras are not capable of producing serious video. I would guess that roughly 85% of dedicated video cameras today _use_ tape simply because it is the only medium capable of the bitrates and storage capacity necessary for an hour or more of uncompressed video.

[grey_eminence]

Display_N_Stor Handheld devices

The market is changing radically according to article and I see it expanding as new product ideas come on the market.

TV Video on cell phones, Blackberry TV, I-Pod TV and full lenght movies on handhelds are just around the corner.

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