Ambarella, the company that makes the image processor SOC (system on Chip) for GoPro have just released their up coming camera SOC specs – the A9. Considering that Ambarella have been exclusively making the imaging SOC for GoPro, it is not unreasonable to assume that this new SOC outlines the features of the Next GoPro.
Here is how the A9 is described:
The Ambarella A9 Camera SOC enables development of the next generation of HD and Ultra-HD video cameras with leading-edge video features and exceptional still-image quality.
In addition to 4K Ultra HD video resolution at 30 frames per second, the A9 supports high frame-rate video for capturing fast-action sports with 1080p video at 120 frames per second or 720p video at 240 frames per second.
The A9 includes dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 CPUs providing the performance required for advanced applications including wireless connectivity to smartphones for video-streaming or image sharing.
Looking at the spec sheet, this new SOC will include quite an interesting set of features.
Imaging Features
Mainly, is seems that GoPro 4 will have 4K encoded using H.264 and be capable of 120p @1080, as well as have integrated Wifi and Social media sharing capabilities.
Of course, GoPro may opt to make several flavors of that SOC enabling and disabling features to segment the market into a High/Medium/Low price tags as they did with the GoPro 3+ and the colored editions.
Ultra HD 4K H.264 Encoder
- High Profile with B-frames for high efficiency
Super High Frame Rate Modes
- 1080p120 and 720p240 for action videography
Advanced Imaging
- 700Mpixels/s oversampling performance
- Multi-exposure HDR and WDR tone mapping
- Electronic image stabilization (EIS)
- Improved MCTF with advanced sharpening
Wi-Fi™ Connectivity
- Remote viewfinder, playback
- Upload pictures and video to social media
General Features
Processor Cores
- Dual Core ARM® Cortex™-A9 @ up to 1 GHz
- NEON™ and FPU acceleration
- Ambarella Image and Video DSPs
- Cryptography Engine
Sensor and Video I/O
- Dual sensor interfaces
- 12-lane SLVDS/HiSPi™/subLVDS, 4-lane MIPI™, or 16-bit
- 1-lane SLVDS/MIPI
- BT.601/656/1120 video in and BT.656/1120 out
- 24-bit RGB out, HDMI® 1.4a with PHY out
- PAL/NTSC composite SD video out
Front End Sensor Processing
- 32 MPixels maximum resolution
- 700 MHz maximum pixel rate
- Lens shading, fixed pattern noise correction
- Multi-exposure HDR
- WDR local exposure
Video Encoding
- H.264 codec BP/MP/HP Level 5.1 and MJPEG
- Ultra HD 4K encode performance
- 1080p120, 720p240 modes
- Low bitrate/high quality encoding
- On-the-fly change of multiple encoding parameters
- Flexible GOP configuration
- Multiple CBR and VBR rate control modes
Image Processing
- 3D motion compensated noise reduction (MCTF)
- Electronic Image stabilization (EIS)
- Adjustable AE/AWB/AF
- High quality polyphase scalers
- Crop, mirror, flip, 90° rotation
Memory Interfaces
- DDR3/DDR3L
- 32-bit data bus
- Dual SMIO with SDXC SD™ Card Support
- NAND flash, SLC with ECC
- Boot from NAND, SPI EEPROM, USB or eMMC
Peripheral Interfaces
- GMAC Ethernet with GMII / MII
- USB2.0 HS Device or Host w/PHY
- Multiple I2S, SSI/SPI, IDC, and UART
- Multiple PWM, Stepper, and ADC channels
- Many GPIO ports, PWM, Steppers, IR, ADC
- Watchdog Timer, multiple general purpose timers, JTAG
Physical
- 32nm Low Power CMOS
- <1W for 1080p60 encode
- <2W for Ultra HD 4K encode
- Operating temperature 0°C to 70°C
- TFBGA package with 404 balls, 15×15 mm, 0.65 mm pitch
[Ambarella A9 Ultra HD 4K Camera SoC via rcgroups via eoshd]
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