As multimedia systems grow in complexity, system and SoC developers increasingly rely on vendors to provide “solutions”—combinations of hardware and software that together implement complete multimedia functions such as audio and video compression and decompression. Vendors have responded by offering a growing number of such solutions.
This has created a new challenge for system and SoC developers: vendors’ claims about the functionality and performance of their solutions are difficult to interpret and often impossible to compare.
Even with standards-based function, there’s no standardization of functionality and performance claims. In reporting the capabilities and performance of their solutions, vendors may use different:
- Algorithm variants (modes, levels, profiles, frame sizes, bit rates, etc.)
- Test streams
- Metrics
To meet vendors’ and system designers’ needs for making credible and reliable comparisons of solutions, BDTI introduced the BDTI Solution Certification Service™. BDTI’s Solution Certification Service involves two phases: (1) the vendor measures the performance if its solution (such as a video decoder) using BDTI’s proprietary test streams, and (2) BDTI independently verifies the vendor’s results and certifies the performance of the solution.
Recently, a licensable silicon IP vendor engaged with BDTI to certify its H.264 decoder solution. For H.264 Solution Certification, performance metrics include the minimum clock rate required for real-time operation, total memory usage, main memory bandwidth utilization, energy consumption, and cost. By obtaining BDTI certification of its solution, the vendor stands to benefit in several important ways. First, BDTI certification allows the vendor to underscore that it has a real, production-worthy solution, not vaporware. This can be particularly important for vendors new to an application space. Second, it gives the vendor credible, well defined performance data. BDTI has carefully selected the test streams, operating points, and performance metrics used in H.264 Solution Certification to be representative of typical H.264 decoding applications. This allows vendors to generate the meaningful, comparable performance data customers need in order to confidently assess competing solutions. Ultimately, enhanced credibility and more meaningful performance data open up sales opportunities for solution vendors and simplify customer evaluations, accelerating time to revenue.
The Solution Certification service is appropriate for vendors of chips, silicon IP, and software IP—any company that needs to provide customers with reliable, comparable, and credible information on the product-worthiness and performance of its solutions. Contact BDTI for more information on Solution Certification.
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