NEC Electronics has has developed a technology for improving the display of low-resolution images and movies on large screen panels. Working with NEC Corporation, NEC Electronics has achieved a new technology for greatly reducing the blurring and graininess that occurs when low-resolution media is magnified for large-screen display.

The new technology is a single frame super-resolution technology which analyzes and processes the information contained in one frame of data to improve blurring and graininess. It is based on an algorithm which refines the contours of people and objects in image magnification process, and compensates for the quality and enhances the color rendition for crisp images.

The application of the new algorithm enhances 1seg ground digital broadcasts from the QVGA format (320 ? 240 pixels) of image data to the WVGA format (800 ? 400 pixels) for crisp image display on mobile phones and car navigation systems. 1seg is a mobile terrestrial digital audio/video and data broadcasting service in Japan.

Additionally, the technology boosts image data in VGA format (720 ? 480 pixels) ordinarily used for TV broadcasts and DVD storage up to to six times the resolution, providing clear images for HDTV (1920 ? 1080 pixels).

Before the end of summer, NEC Electronics will begin accepting orders for ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) products with the new technology incorporated in the IP core. Shipping of ASICs with the single frame super-resolution is expected to begin as early as summer 2009, with orders projected to reach ?10 billion in fiscal year ended March 2011. Because of the capability to improve image quality using only a single image, the advanced IP core requires less data capacity and can process in real time without the need for external processing memory.

NEC said that the new IP core can be used in 1seg broadcast receivers such as mobile phones and car navigation systems as well as in HDTVs.