Expanding VP8 Hardware Decoder for Full WebP Support

With the recent launch of WebP support in Chrome, Picasa and Gmail, we're happy to announce that the third generation G-Series 1 VP8 hardware decoder, called “Chip Shot,” now offers full 256 Megapixel support for WebP still images. The G-Series 1 is available for licensing at no cost through the WebM Project hardware page. 

Chip Shot is part of our new golf theme for VP8 hardware decoders, as we noticed that most of the engineers working on the G-Series decoder are very fond of the sport.

The G-Series 1 decoder offers both 1080p 30 frames per second WebM and 36.5 Megapixels per second WebP processing at around 100 MHz clock rate. It is a full hardware implementation, requiring a mere 2 MHz host CPU load even when processing 1080p video or any size WebP images. The decoder uses 380 kilogates of logic area and 52 kilobytes of embedded single-port memory. The logic consumes a negligible 27 mW of power at 1080p resolution, ensuring many hours of video playback time on battery-operated devices.

G-series 1 Block Diagram

Based on the previous releases of the silicon-proven G-Series 1 decoder IP, Chip Shot is a low-risk solution for anyone who wants to enable WebM and WebP support on their chipsets or SOCs. Including all G-Series 1 versions that support WebM, we have released over 50 decoders to our semiconductor partners worldwide to date.

Posted by Aki Kuusela, Engineering Manager of the WebM hardware team.