A system-on-a-chip for MPEG-4 multimedia stream processing and communication

A VLSI architecture for multimedia stream processing and communication is presented. This system-on-a-chip is able to communicate multimedia applications -like interactive multimedia or mobile multimedia- over generic networks. Main features of the architecture are scalability in the number of multimedia streams managed, bandwidth sharing, capacity to control the offered service quality and possibility to implement mobile applications. MPEG4 multimedia stream requirements are included in the architecture. Four main units are distinguished in the design: cell communication, QoS control, protocol processing and DMA (Direct Memory Access). Preliminary results of an implementation of the cell communication unit as an ATM-cell-based multiplexing one show the suitability of the architecture for STS-12/TM-4/OC-12 throughputs (67-2.08 Mb/s).