With the increasing demand for display quality, the resolution of outdoor large-screen and conference TV walls has gradually shifted from the mainstream 1080P60 to 4K60. At the same time as the display quality is improved, the technical challenges are as close as possible. To achieve the 4K60 display, it means that the use of HDMI 2.0 requires the transmission of image data of up to 18 Gbps. Nowadays, regardless of the scheme, there are obvious advantages and disadvantages, and the industry needs a kind of stability and cost-effectiveness. A solution to the needs of flexibility and so on.

4K60 shows new design challenges

As shown in the figure above, the 4K60 puts new demands on the front-end video processor and the rear display video processor: When using this scheme, the LED video processing board mostly uses the parallel interface as the input, which means the video transmission board. While transmitting video, it is necessary to convert the data output from HDMI2.0 into RGB parallel port output, which poses new challenges for existing transmission chips and format conversion chips. In response to this problem, there are currently two common solutions on the market:

One solution uses a high-end FPGA to implement HDMI 2.0 input parallel interface output and supports HDCP. The advantage of this solution is the single-chip solution, but the disadvantage is that the cost is high, and HDCP debugging is very complicated, and the system stability is not good.

Another solution is to use the LatTIce dedicated image conversion chip SiI9777 to split the HDMI 2.0 into two HDMI 1.4, and then use the other two dedicated chips to convert the HDMI 1.4 data into parallel interface output. At the same time, it can support left/right division or parity pixel splitting and audio extraction, and the built-in mode generator provides an optional blank screen. The important thing is that this LatTIce special chip can also support HDCP, and the system stability is better. However, the disadvantage is that the cost is high, and the schemes of different manufacturers are adopted, and the system complexity and debugging difficulty are high.

Obviously, the two existing solutions are not ideal. To this end, leading semiconductor supplier LatTIce combines experience in FPGA and HDMI technology to build a complete solution based on SiI9777 and LatTIceECP3 FPGAs to meet the needs of developers.

In addition to supporting 4K @ 50/60Hz Ultra HD resolution, the SiI9777 is also compliant with the HDCP 2.2 premium content protection protocol and, more importantly, the world's first full-bandwidth HDMI® 2.0/MHL® 3.0 dual-mode integration that fully supports the HDCP 2.2 protocol. Circuit, this program has accumulated enough development experience since its release in 2014. This makes it the perfect choice for the Lattice solution.

In practical applications, the SiI9777 first converts one HDMI 2.0 into two HDMI 1.4s, and then converts HDMI 1.4 into a parallel interface output using a low-cost LatticeECP3-17 FPGA.

LatticeECP3 Series

The LatticeECP3 family of devices offers high performance SERDES blocks, cascadable high performance sysDSPTM, very large logic and sysMEMTM embedded RAM, distributed memory, sysCLOCK PLL, DDR3 memory interface, and sysIO buffers. A low-cost, low-power programmable solution for a wide range of wireless and wired applications. The LatticeECP3-17 is one of the most cost effective products. This solution has great advantages in terms of cost and stability. At the same time, because the entire chipset is a product of Lattice, the system complexity and debugging difficulty are well guaranteed.

Output scheme without video processing

The previous introduction is an output solution without video processing, but if there is a need, Lattice also has a corresponding response. Developers can choose to replace the two ECP3-17s with a single ECP3-70 or ECP3-150 for more powerful video processing. At this time, the area of ​​the board can be saved to meet the needs of miniaturization design.

In order to meet more diverse needs, Lattice even launched a dedicated DEMO platform integrated with 9777+ ECP3-150 + 9777, which can support HDMI2.0 --> 2 HDMI1.4 -- HDMI2.0 solution. The platform also supports HSMC connectors, which users can use to connect to other transit boards.

For today's embedded engineers, they face unprecedented challenges in the design of I/O interfaces. The increase in system complexity and the need for more high-bandwidth transmission applications have placed a higher demand on them. At this time, FPGAs with parallel computing and programmable advantages are playing an increasingly important role. As a manufacturer of FPGA and interface chips, Lattice combines these two products to bring more solutions to future displays.

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