pixelworks lcd panel controller made in china

Shanghai, China, Jan.5, 2022– Pixelworks, Inc. (NASDAQ: PXLW), a leading provider of innovative video and display processing solutions, today announced that the recently launched iQOO 9 series smartphones incorporate the Pixelworks X5 Pro visual processor to strengthen the competence of users in the game battlefield. With upgraded technology and an optimized configuration bolstered by Pixelworks technology, the iQOO 9 series is expected to set a new benchmark for high-performance smartphones and mobile gaming.

The iQOO 9 series line-up includes the iQOO 9 and iQOO 9 Pro flagships. The new iQOO 9 model features a 6.78 inch flat flexible AMOLED screen with up to 120 Hz refresh rate and maximum resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels. The iQOO 9 Pro flagship features a 6.78 inch curved flexible AMOLED screen with an LTPO controller 2.0 capable of 1-120Hz variable frame rate adjustment and maximum resolution of 1400 x 3200 pixels. The two models are both built on the latest Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 8 Gen 1 mobile platform and powered by Pixelworks advanced visual processing technology, which serves as the foundation for mobile devices to run mobile games with higher frame rate, lower power consumption, and longer battery life. The iQOO 9 series has already been recognized by King Premier League (KPL, which is a competition dedicated to the Chinese game Kings of Glory) for its powerful performance before the launch and is now the official smartphone partner of KPL competitions.

Immersion is the key to driving users’ retention in mobile gaming. Picture clarity, color accuracy, motion smoothness are fundamental to delivering an immersive visual experience, which Pixelworks enables through the following visual display quality features in iQOO 9 series smartphones:

MotionEngine® Technology – Boosts the display performance of popular mobile games on the iQOO 9 series, such as Honkai Impact 3, Perfect World, Moonlight Blade, and Genshin Impact. Pixelworks’ patented motion estimation and motion compensation (MEMC) technology optimizes the content of low frame rate animation to high frame rate up to 120 fps, effectively eliminating unintended judder and ensuring ultra smooth motion quality. Meanwhile, Pixelworks distributed processing offloads GPU workload to reduce overall system power consumption, which in turn prevents overheating and extends game play on mobile devices.

Always-HDR Mode – Pixelworks real-time SDR-to-HDR conversion exposes more details and shades of color for all gaming/video content, the vast majority of which is SDR (standard dynamic range) format, for an always-immersive experience. For mobile games, it provides ambient adaptive color gamut to display a more true-to-life gaming environment. For videos, the color and contrast enhancement is adapted to present the original artistic intent to the screen in a more precise way; this function can also be applied to video streaming Apps, such as Bilibili, TencentVideo, iQIYI, Youku and Tencent Sports.

Absolute Color Accuracy – Every iQOO 9/9 Pro smartphone is factory calibrated with Pixelworks patented high-efficiency calibration technology, producing an average Delta E value less than 1, which means that the human eyes cannot detect any deviation from perfect color reproduction.

DC Dimming – Pixelworks’ innovative DC Dimming solution dynamically adjusts the display current to reduce the screen flickering frequently associated with conventional Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) dimming, thus reducing eye strain and ensuring enhanced eye comfort.

“It’s exciting to witness the launch of iQOO 9 series at the beginning of 2022,” said Leo Shen, Sr. VP, GM of Mobile BU, Pixelworks. “iQOO’s pursuit of premium performance and design of smartphones keeps the brand continuously innovating and winning  great popularity among young generations. The prominent leading position of iQOO in the smartphone market has been proven by the recognition of KPL. We are looking forward to further integrating Pixelworks’ visual processing technology with iQOO’s manufacturing experience to deliver a mobile gaming experience that is nothing short of perfection. ”

“iQOO 9 series flagship is our gift for iQOOers in the year of Tiger which carries our best wishes.” said Yaojing Yang, Director of Product Innovation, iQOO. “We are constantly exploring the optimization of the screen, performance, heat dissipation, battery life, as well as the improvement of the visual and audio experience as a whole. We are glad to have Pixelworks as our strong partner in the field of visual display, and we’ll continue our visual innovation journey together to offer more fascinating and imaginative gaming and video experiences to our users.”

Pixelworks provides industry-leading content creation, video delivery and display processing solutions and technology that enable highly authentic viewing experiences with superior visual quality, across all screens – from cinema to smartphone and beyond. The Company has more than 20 years of history delivering image processing innovation to leading providers of consumer electronics, professional displays and video streaming services. For more information, please visit the company’s web site at www.pixelworks.com.

Note: Pixelworks, MotionEngine and the Pixelworks logo are registered trademarks of Pixelworks, Inc. Qualcomm and Snapdragon are trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated, registered in the United States and other countries. Qualcomm Snapdragon is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Pixelworks is a new breed of company that truly operates without borders. We believe this will be the model for companies in the new millennium. We have optimized our culture and operations to take advantage of a dynamic new style of business fueled by technology and free trade in which people, products, and ideas flow freely around our planet. We leverage the strengths of every country and every culture where we do business to create a dynamic, flexible, aggressive engine of growth that can quickly take advantage of business opportunities around the world.

Pixelworks, Inc. designs, develops, and markets semiconductors and software for advanced televisions, multimedia projectors, and flat-panel monitors. Its system-on-a-chip integrated circuits (ICs) or interface IC products integrate a microprocessor, memory, and image processing circuits that function as a computer on a single chip. Its customers include Dell, Epson, Hewlett Packard, InFocus, LG Electronics, NEC-Mitsubishi, Philips, Samsung, Sanyo, Sony, Tokyo Electron Device, and ViewSonic. Close to 90 percent of the company"s sales come from its Asian customers.

Then, in 1996, Alley along with a group of InFocus employees that included Michael West, Robert Greenberg, Bradley Zenger, and Ken Hunkins, decided that they wanted to "make money, have fun, and play fair" and founded Pixelworks. At the time other, larger companies were moving into selling component technology. Pixelworks instead focused on designing and building semiconductors that let flat panel displays translate output signals from such video sources as digital television receivers, digital video disc players, and computers.

At first, Pixelworks focused on the computer market. Its self-contained modules featuring an embedded operating system, source code, and the software tools needed to customize display devices replaced a handful of electronics in flat panel displays and helped flat-display makers reduce the cost of their products. Displays with a Pixelworks controller could show web pages, spreadsheets, and a television broadcast in different windows on the same screen.

Recognized for its innovative product, Pixelworks also stood out in its industry for its distinctive management approach. In its earliest days, Alley ran the company without a strict budget, a style that grew out of his stints at Ford, Boeing, and InFocus Systems. "Most of the metrics and reports you get are like trying to drive the car by looking in the rearview mirror," he said inOregon Business in 2001. "What I rely on is feedback from customers and employees. I can tell you the health of our business by talking with customers much better than I can by reading any report."

Management"s goals in 1997 were to grow revenues in the millions; secure customers in Europe, Japan, Asia, and the United States; and introduce Pixelworks chips into three basic markets, televisions, monitors, and projectors. It achieved those goals and reached $12 million in revenues in its first year. "The problem with any [technology] market is you can"t figure out how big any of these things is going to grow and when," Alley asserted in the sameOregon Business article. His solution: "[Y]ou don"t bet on it happening next quarter or next year. You build a platform that can survive an up, down or sideways market."

Pixelworks also kept costs down by keeping a small staff and asking its employees each to do a variety of tasks. Every new employee that joined Pixelworks was literally issued a set of juggling balls when he reported to work as a simple, physical expression of the company"s expectations of its workers. Most learned to juggle. They also all flew coach and competed to see who could spend the least on lunch.

Pixelworks" founders also believed that their system-on-a-chip ICs would someday be used in televisions, and they thus positioned Pixelworks to influence television design. "We looked at the business model for computers and said if the model works for computers, the model should work for televisions," said Allen Alley, the new company"s chief executive officer in a retrospective 2003Wall Street Journalarticle.

When, in 1998, the recession in Asia led some Asian high-tech corporations to create partnerships and joint ventures with Northwest firms, Pixelworks had the opportunity to enter the television market. Toshiba Corporation, eager to lure work for its new semiconductor plant in Oita, Japan, agreed to absorb some of the cost of developing Pixelworks" first semiconductor for use in flat-panel monitors and high-definition televisions in exchange for assuming its manufacturing business. Toshiba extended a line of credit to Pixelworks on manufacturing and rushed the production of the first batch of test chips.

In 1999, Pixelworks" staff of 45 workers moved into the company"s new 23,000-square-foot office building, and Pixelworks held its third round of venture capital financing, bringing its total capital raised to close to $20 million. This third round of money went to develop the next generation of the company"s ImageProcessor products designed to take advantage of the surge in liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors. That year, ViewSonic, the top-selling monitor manufacturer in the United States, chose the ImageProcessor to power the first flat panel displays to incorporate digital, analog, and video inputs into one display.

Although the company lost $5 million on revenues of almost $13 million in 1999, Red Herring magazine named it one of the country"s ten young companies to watch in mid-1999. Moreover, Pixelworks continued to grow during troubled financial times. When the company held its initial public offering (IPO) in the spring of 2000, the NASDAQ was past its crest and declining steadily. "A lot of people thought we were crazy to go out," recalled Alley in a 2001Oregon Businessarticle, "but one of my philosophies has been, if I can raise the money, raise the money." The money from the IPO went toward working capital and general corporate purposes. Shares, issued at $10 per share in May 2000, reached more than $50 per share by October. Named Technology Company of the Year by the Oregon Entrepreneurs forum in 2000, Pixelworks became profitable in the quarter ending June 2000 and remained so. Total revenues climbed to $52.6 million for the year 2000, and Pixelworks began to supply products to Compaq and IBM, among others.

Beginning in 2000, some of the major electronics manufacturers began to integrate Pixelworks" ImageProcessor architecture into their products. Samsung Electronics employed the ImageProcessor in a line of its flat panel displays in 2000 to provide its monitors with the flexibility to offer video and computer graphics on the screen simultaneously. In 2001, NEC-Mitsubishi Electronics Displays high resolution, premium-quality LCD monitors incorporated the ImageProcessor.

Also in 2001, Pixelworks expanded its scope through acquisitions. With the purchase of Panstera Inc., which manufactured fully integrated handheld devices, it entered the low-cost XDA market. This acquisition also brought with it the technology to offer screenmakers a single-chip solution that combined analog capabilities with an extended graphics array. Pixelworks" second acquisition, nDSP Corporation, strengthened its advanced video processing product and technology portfolio with the addition of low-cost, high-performance video processing ICs and the technology to enhance the image quality of mainstream consumer televisions and other digital display products. The addition of nDSP Corporation, which had two offices and 24 employees in Beijing and Shenzhen, also established Pixelworks" presence in China.

By 2001, the global economic downturn had caused the projector market growth rate to slow to 25 to 30 percent annually, but growth in flat panel displays more than made up for the decline for Pixelworks. Alley acknowledged his company"s luck inOregon Business: "I absolutely believe it is sometimes better to be lucky than good. We"ve done quite well. It"s fundamentally because the markets we sell our products to are still robust." Pixelworks had grown from its five original founders to 150 employees and had revenues of $90 million.

The following year, Pixelworks put together a complete design for the electronics inside LCD and plasma televisions. When Xoceco decided to use this design as the base for its first flat-screen television, Pixelworks" engineers taught the company how it worked and how it could be modified via software. It also acquired rival Jaldi Semiconductor Corporation as part of the move toward consolidation among the manufacturers of chips used in television and computer displays.

Pixelworks finished work on a new video-processing chip, code-named Photopia, in the fall of 2003. Photopia integrated many functions onto one chip, saving space and cost. Alley took the product first to his customers in China, the fastest-growing market for the company"s fastest-growing product line. That

By 2004, consumer trends were leaning toward flat panel and high definition televisions and Pixelworks decided that its immediate future lay in high definition television. Thus, early in 2004, it partnered with byd:sign and Xoceco to introduce a complete line of flat-panel plasma and LCD televisions for sale in the United States. The plan moved Pixelworks into the position of becoming a dominant supplier of microchips for flat panel LCD televisions. In fact, 2004 revenues for the company were $176.2 million, up 25 percent from $140.9 million in 2003. However, the limited capabilities of the manufacturers LCD panels used in computers and televisions, mostly in Asia, kept prices for 30-inch LCD televisions above $1,000 and out of reach of many consumers. Not to have all of its chips in one basket, Pixelworks also began to look to the next logical extension of its technology by adding browsing capability to its products and moving into Internet appliance space.

Principal Subsidiaries: Pixelworks Japan, LLC; Pixelworks Taiwan, LLC; Panstera, Inc.; nDSP Delaware, Inc.; nDSP Corporation; Pixelworks Ltd.; Pixelworks Nova Scotia; Jaldi Semiconductor.

1998: Toshiba Corporation helps Pixelworks develop its first semiconductor for use in flat-panel monitors and high-definition televisions in exchange for assuming its manufacturing business.

Such a sharp drop in prices would be an excellent thing for Tualatin display chip maker Pixelworks Inc., which designs and sells microchips for projectors, computer monitors and digital televisions.

Two more local display companies, InFocus Corp. and Planar Systems Inc., could also be affected by the shifting dynamics of the digital television market, though not quite as directly as Pixelworks, which makes chips for all types of digital televisions, regardless of which technology they rely upon: LCD (liquid crystal display), plasma or rear projection.

Research firm ISuppli expects the average price of a 40-inch to 44-inch LCD television to drop from $6,809 this year to $2,560 in 2006, said Sweta Dash, director of LCD and projection research.

"As long as digital TV prices are high, you can"t replace all the billion CRTs [cathode ray tube, the bulky old-technology televisions] out there," said Alley. But as prices come down, "we become a viable replacement." And with Pixelworks offering display controller chips for all types of digital televisions, that just means a bigger market for Pixelworks.

When LCD panel prices went up last year, due to tight supply, it was difficult for Pixelworks to maintain its pricing. LCD panels account for 70 percent to 80 percent of the cost of an LCD television; when they go up, "we get huge pressure on the chip price, because manufacturers are trying to maintain retail price," Alley said.

"When panel prices drop, manufacturers don"t mind the chip price so much, because we"re not the tallest pole in the tent." Pixelworks competes with just two other major suppliers of display controller chips, Genesis Microchip Inc. and Trident Microsystems Inc.

Beaverton-headquartered Planar, on the other hand, manufactures televisions and competes with a large number of companies, though its LCD and plasma televisions comprise a very small part of its business.

Planar"s commercial business unit concentrates on flat-panel computer monitors, a business that has grown very quickly for Planar over the past four years.

As the television market grows overall, LCDs are expected to remain the dominant segment in digital television. While ISuppli expects both LCD and microdisplay televisions to increase by more than 320 percent between this year and 2008, the LCD sector will be almost six times larger, selling nearly 37 million systems in 2008, against just over 6 million microdisplay sets.

Watch this 90-second explainer video to learn how MEMC works, what problems it solves and the unique benefits behind the latest advancements in the technology for mobile. #smartphones#mobilephones#display#video@PCarson123@dhurkapic.twitter.com/E8KfTfhT7J— Pixelworks, Inc. (@pixelworksinc) May 8, 2020

Sr. Director Vikas Dhurka: From a capability point of view, the technologies that we provide are agnostic to the screen size and the mechanical design of the display. With the Pixelworks processor, any display could have a visual experience that is far superior than anything else that"s out there.

I think smartphone displays will get more dynamic if you"re following what"s happening in the next round of flagship 120 hertz adaptive frame rate panels - things are going to become more adaptive, not less. So, the whole idea of manually switching and selecting modes, I think, could become outdated.

One of the things that sets us apart from other touchscreen display manufacturers is the level of customization we offer. Our product portfolio includes a wide range of TFT & LCD Module, OLED, touch sensor and glass, A/D Board, Mother Board, Power Adaptor, which we can provide stand-alone or integrated into complete assemblies. Our custom display and touch solutions are used in a variety of end-user applications: Gaming monitors, industrial equipment, outdoor & POS terminals and more. Whether your product will be used in the great outdoors or a Casino, we can build a custom, all-in-one solution for your needs.

Pixel Works Ind. offers a complete 7"-65" range of projected capacitive touchscreen solution including glass touch sensor, film touch sensor(pliability), controllers, drivers for various operating systems and software utilities resulting in shorter development and integration time. Anti-Glare glass option offers pristine optical clarity, high touch durability and long term stability over temperature. PWI’s controller IC are layout by ourselves and all firmware are in-house debug, so that every requirement can be solved fast.

LCD controller boards named A/D Board are developed based on specific industrial requirements, such as long-term availability, quality and stability. They are available as a fully-equipped, complete LCD controller board kit (cable, LED Driver, power supply, Adaptor and On-Screen-Display board). Scaler boards with video inputs (DisplayPort, VGA(RGB), DVI, HDMI, CVBS/YC) are optionally available. In addition to standard TFT LCDs with a single/dual channel LVDS input with resolutions up to (UHD) 3840 x 2160 pixels can also be controlled. Mother board powered by Rockchip and Intel also can available from us.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Pixelworks, Inc. Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. I will be your operator for today"s call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following management"s prepared remarks, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. This conference call is being recorded for replay purposes.

Thank you, Andrew. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us on today"s call. With me on the call are Pixelworks" President and CEO, Todd DeBonis; and Chief Financial Officer, Haley Aman.

The purpose of today’s conference call is to supplement the information provided in Pixelworks’ press release issued earlier today announcing the company’s financial results for the third quarter of 2022.

Also note throughout the company"s press release and management statements during this conference call, we refer to net loss attributable to Pixelworks, Inc. as simply net loss. For additional details and reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP net loss and GAAP net loss to adjusted EBITDA, please refer to the company"s press release issued earlier today.

The Pixelworks" team has continued to execute despite the various macro challenges and this quarter marks the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth in both our Mobile and Projector businesses.

In October, Vivo launched the iQOO Neo 7 smartphone incorporated an upgraded Pixelworks X5 visual processor, with the goal of delivering a more captivating gaming and video experience. Built on MediaTek"s Dimensity 9000 Plus flagship 5G mobile platform, iQOO Neo 7 our patented mimic technology with high efficiency interrelation algorithm to boost low frame rate gaming content to high frame rates of up to 120 frames per second.

Together with our efforts to spearhead an engaged ecosystem for mobile gaming, through ongoing collaboration with multiple leading game engine platforms and design studios, Pixelworks has distinguished itself within China as a technology leader in the area of mobile visual processing. This recognition is creating expanded opportunities for our technology, both in the form of deeper strategic engagements with AP platform vendors and increasing inbound interest from IC design firms to license and incorporate certain Pixelworks" visual processing IP into their next generation solutions.

Shifting to the Projector business, revenue grew single-digit sequentially and increased 10% year-over-year, reflecting the highest quarterly revenue in more than two years. Although customers have more recently indicated some improvement in their ability to source other key projector components, such as timing controllers and panels, the extremely tight supply environment and long lead-times for components earlier in the year hampered projector OEMs for meeting total end demand.

During the quarter, we also completed the planned conversion to a joint stock corporation as part of our preparation for our Pixelworks Shanghai subsidiary for a local listing on the stock market in China.

The structural change brings us one step closer to Pixelworks Shanghai beginning the CRSC"s tutoring process and ultimately submitting its formal application for the logo [ph].

While we remain cautious about the near-term macro environment and consumer demand, we are in a strong financial position to fully execute on our growth initiatives and fully extend Pixelworks" technology leadership into our target and markets.

Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $57.6 million. The sequential increase primarily reflected $10.7 million in net proceeds from closing the transaction to transfer approximately 2.7% of Pixelworks" equity interest in our Shanghai subsidiary to new private equity investors. This increase was partially offset my cashews and operating activities.

Well, I mean, listen, so this particular financing was a unique financing. Well, I mean, one thing that we did with this financing is we actually sold our equity, Pixelworks Inc."s ownership equity to a new round of investors versus dilutive event to all the investors in Pixelworks Shanghai. And so the net cash from that financing actually all came back to the US to Pixelworks Inc.

With the first couple of engagements we"ve done, people have wanted to work with us directly. So, all the work on Avatar was done with Pixelworks employees. All the work that"s going on with Titanic, and the other content that we"re working on right now is with Pixelworks employees. So, we have a very good team. Not that large, but it"s extremely busy doing this content creation and making a good, better [ph] film.

We sort of bucked that, that seasonality this year. Going into next year, you might see it. It"s somewhat being offset by -- they have this built up demand for systems that they couldn"t deliver. I mean, if I looked at it combined, it"s about -- if you look at how many devices we shipped to our OEMs for a quarter, I think these guys have built up demand that they can address because of past shortages of at least a quarters worth of ship, right? That"s about the severity of where their shortage is costing in the past, not by us we kept in front of it. But by other component vendors predominantly [Indiscernible] and panels. We see that freeing up now.

Himax"s (NASDAQ:HIMX +1.3%) eDP 1.4 LCD timing controller supports 4K-and-higher monitor, notebook, and tablet displays, as well as Nvidia and AMD"s G-Sync and FreeSync technologies (they reduce image stuttering/tearing). Mass-production is expected to begin in Q4 - Himax says it"s already "working with leading LCD panel makers and system OEMs in Korea, China, Taiwan, and Japan" on designs.

The company claims the controller has a power consumption edge over rival products thanks to its ability to allow a system"s CPU/GPU to "flexibly switch from normal state to [an] intermittent low-power state" when an image is static.

A Himax LCD timing controller has been designed into a beta version of the Oculus Rift VR headset. No word yet on the supplier for the first commercial Rift model, which is due in Q1 2016 and has a 2160x1200 resolution split over two displays (one for each eye).

Given that the LCD monitor market is still expanding, the high demand issuing from the market is a crucial source of revenue for IC design houses despite the intense price competition that has crimped profit margins. To ensure a steady stream of revenue, controller IC suppliers will need to fortify their position in the market, and future competition in the controller market can be expected to become even more intense.

Although Taiwanese suppliers were late entrants to the LCD controller market, Taiwanese players had already accumulated formidable IC design capabilities, and their R&D personnel costs are relatively low. These advantages have made the Taiwanese design houses very competitive on price. The 60% of global LCD monitor supply that Taiwanese monitor makers supply is another advantage, giving Taiwanese suppliers a firm foundation on which to develop their businesses.

As regards collaboration with customers, cost is not the only concern for LCD monitor makers. Controller IC quality affects the performance of the whole monitor. At the same time, the trend towards higher levels of IC integration has created a situation where many different functions are now integrated on the same IC; IC design houses are now providing customers with total solutions. When an LCD monitor maker switches to a new component supplier there is a higher risk of quality problems, rendering attractive prices insufficient in soliciting new business from monitor manufacturers; customers must have confidence in the compatibility and quality of their offerings for there to be any chance of maintaining a long-term collaborative relationship. It is for this reason that international players such as Genesis have been able to maintain a leading role in the industry. Currently, Taiwanese IC design houses such as Mstar have strong capabilities in the areas of mixed signal technology and structural design, as well as price advantages, but have also succeeded in building a reputation for quality, which should help them to secure more customers in the future.

As Taiwanese suppliers have gradually come to prominence in the LCD monitor controller market, companies such as Genesis have been forced to move up into more high-end segments to maintain profit margins. Such suppliers are now focusing on high-resolution monitors and LCD TV controllers. In the short term, therefore, international suppliers such as Pixelworks and Genesis will remain the leading players in the LCD TV controller IC market.

While Taiwanese design houses are also developing LCD TV controller ICs, the technology needed for TVs is of a higher order; time to market will vary depending on technological capabilities. In the short term at least, most Taiwanese firms will continue to concentrate mainly on LCD controller ICs so as to maintain their main source of revenue.

This report covers controller ICs for adoption in LCD monitors worldwide. Controller IC for other applications such as LCD TV do not fall within the scope of statistics presented herein.

LCD controller IC refers LCD monitor control board scaling engines, which may integrate ADC, PLL, TMDS (Transition Minimized Differential Signaling) Receiver, MCU, OSD and T-CON (Timing Controller). LCD monitor controller ICs are used mainly for processing static images. Controller ICs receive signals from a PC or other audiovisual device and process the signal for conversion to a signal recognizable by the TFT LCD panel.

The input-end signal for an LCD monitor can be either an analog or digital, and as different ICs are needed to process various signals, control boards contain numerous ICs. In the past, CDT monitors were only able to receive analog signals, which required the PC"s VGA (Video Graphics Array) card to convert the digital signal to analog before transmission to the CDT monitor. At present, as TFT LCD panel can only recognize digital signals, the analog signal produced by the VGA card must be converted back into a digital signal by the ADC. Implementing this repeated signal conversion allows LCD monitors to directly replace CDT monitors. Digital input signals are received directly by the TMDS receiver.

Formerly, the ADC, DVI, MCU and scaler ICs were all independent IC units that IC design houses sold separately to LCD monitor makers. Currently, in order to reduce costs, design houses have started to integrate many different components onto the same IC. Genesis, for example, was the first company to integrate ADC, OSD, and PLL into the scaler. As digital interfaces have become more prevalent, the DVI has become more important, spurring integration of DVI. If both the ADC and DVI functions are integrated into the scaler, this is known as a dual interface. There are thus now three types of LCD monitor input interface: analog, digital, and dual interface. At present, because CDT monitors are still the mainstream, the analog interface is still dominates.

LVDS is a type of signal processing technology that reduces the number of wires between the LCD panel and the controller IC, and which can also reduce voltage and keep EMI to a minimum. Main applications include notebook PCs and 17-inch and larger TFT-LCD monitors.

RSDS is a signal standard transmission interface located between the timing controller and source driver. RSDS reduces bus width and pin count, lowers electricity consumption, reduces EMI, lessens interference, and boosts transmission volume.

The signals produced by the scaler are TTL signals. Typically, these need to be converted into LVDS by the LVDS transmitter. As 15-inch LCD monitors encounter fewer EMI issues, most monitors of this size still use TTL output.

9.Pixelworks Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., a limited liability company duly incorporated and validly existing in accordance with Chinese laws (“Company” or “Target Company”)

Pixelworks Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Pixelworks, Inc. (“PXLW”) and other affiliates of Target Company shall be respectively or collectively referred to as “Target Group” in this Agreement. The contracting parties of this Agreement shall be respectively referred to as a “Party” or collectively “Parties” in this Agreement.

1.7Material Adverse Effectshall mean, the following effects which, individually or in combination with other changes and effect that has resulted in the Target Group’s direct economic losses exceeding RMB 10,000,000 in one time: (a) is or is reasonably expected to cause a Material Adverse Effect on the business, assets (including intangible assets), liabilities (whether contingent or otherwise), status (in terms of finance, Laws or otherwise), prospects or operational performance, including but not limited to the core Intellectual Property Rights of the Target Group being announced void by effective judicial documents, the Target Group being sued for the infringement of others’ Intellectual Property Rights and losing as ruled by effective judicial documents, the Founding Shareholder no longer being the actual controller of the Target Group and its Main Business, or (b) is or is reasonably expected to cause a Material Adverse Effect on the Qualified Listing.

With reference to Fig. 1, wherein shown a LCD monitor, it and the host computer system such as PC 100 are used together.This LCD monitor generally has interface circuit 200 and LCD driving circuit 320.The incoming video signal that interface circuit 200 provides host computer system 100 is connected to LCD driving circuit 320.LCD driving circuit 320 is according to the active matrix of incoming video signal drive TFT-LCD plate 300.

Interface circuit 200 receiving video signals S100, comprising R, G, B analog video signal and level and vertical synchronizing signal.Interface circuit 200 is converted to digital video signal with the analog video signal of host computer system 100 inputs.The level and the vertical synchronizing signal S200 of these digital video signals and process control are provided for LCD driving circuit 320.Interface circuit 200 and LCD driving circuit 320 are integrated in the printed circuit board (PCB) (PCB), and PCB is installed in the LCD monitor.

The structure of LCD interface circuit 200 of the present invention shows in Fig. 4 at Fig. 2.At R, G between input of B analog video signal and the digital of digital video data output, is connecting prime amplifier 210, analogue-to-digital converters (ADC) 220, storer 230 and multiplexer 240 successively.Interface circuit 200 also comprises interface control unit 270, and it has level and vertical synchronizing signal Hsync, the number control signal input that Vsync input and microcontroller 260 provide.The supervisory keyboard 250 of microcontroller 260 and LCD monitor is connected.Interface control unit 270 comprises horizontal level controller 272, and by horizontal control signal wire S272, S272a, S272b, S270 and S271 and ADC220, storer 230 is connected with multiplexer 240.Interface control unit 270 also comprises clock generator and OSD (screen display) control circuit, but these circuit are omitted to simplify accompanying drawing.

Prime amplifier 210 amplifies the R that host computer system 100 provides, G, and B analog video signal S100a, and the R that will amplify, G, B analog video signal S210 outputs to ADC220.ADC220 with the input R, G, B analog video signal S210 is converted to digital video signal, then deposits storer 230 in.Storer 230 comprises frame memory and line storage, and response read S272a and address signal S270 are with the digital video signal of storage ADC220 output.To describe the detailed structure and the operating process of ADC220 and storer 230 with reference to figure 3.The digital video signal S230 that is stored in the storer 230 is provided for multiplexer 240.The selection control signal S271 that multiplexer 240 response interface control modules 270 provide selects desirable digital video signal S200a from incoming video signal S230.Selected digital video signal S200a is provided for LCD driving circuit 320.

Comprise all operations of the interface control unit 270 control LCD interface circuits 200 of horizontal level controller 272, and be preferably formed FPGA (field programmable gate array) or ASIC (special IC).Simultaneously, keyboard 250 is installed in the monitor outside, and it comprises a horizontal level operating key by user"s operation.The horizontal level control signal S260 that microcontroller 260 produces in response to corresponding operating key input signal S250, this signal S260 is provided for horizontal level controller 272.

Horizontal level controller 272 can carry out the horizontal level control operation under fine tuning mode and coarse adjustment mode.Under the fine tuning mode, horizontal level is regulated with single pixel, regulates with a plurality of pixels under the coarse adjustment mode.Fine tuning is that the sampled point by control ADC220 carries out, and coarse adjustment to be write cycle time by the control frame storer carry out.For this reason, horizontal level controller 272 output control signal S272a, the sampled point of control ADC220 under the fine tuning mode is also regulated the output timing of writing enable signal S272 of pointing to storer 230.Horizontal level is regulated the digital video signal in the frame memory was controlled and was stored in operation by the sampled point of analog video signal write cycle time control realization like this.

ADC piece 222 comprises two analogue-to-digital converters ADC1 and ADC2 among Fig. 3.The input of each converter has the R analog video signal, clock signal clk and sampled point control signal ENC-CLK and DS.The output of ADC piece 222 is two 8 bit digital video data Dd1, Dd3 and Dd2, Dd4.Memory block 232 generally comprises frame memory piece 232a and line storage piece 232b.Frame memory piece 232a comprises two couples of frame memory FM1, FM3 and FM2, FM4; Export Dd1 with digital of digital video data respectively for every pair, Dd3 and Dd2, Dd4 links to each other.Equally, line storage piece 232b comprises two line storage LM1 and LM2.Input is from the digital of digital video data and the write cycle time control signal WE1-WE4 of ADC piece 222 in each frame memory.Input read WE in each line storage, the output data of RE and frame memory.Multiplexer piece 242 comprises four multiplexer MUX1-MUX4, the R digital video signal that selectivity output storage piece 232 provides.The I/O lead-in wire figure of Fig. 4 display interface controller 270.

When user"s operation control key 250, will produce horizontal level control signal S260 in the microcontroller 260, and with S260 input level positioner 272.This horizontal level control signal S260 is by fine tuning control signal D9-D2 and coarse adjustment control signal D1, and D0 forms, and is as shown in table 1 below.

Coarse adjustment operation is that the write cycle time by control frame storer FM1-FM4 carries out.For this reason, horizontal level controller 272 is regulated the output timing of writing enable signal WE1-WE4, and these signals point to frame memory FM1-FM4.The output of writing enable signal WE1-WE4 is regularly determined by horizontal level control data D9-D2.Horizontal level controller 272 reading horizontal position control data D9-D2, and enable signal WE1-WE4 is write in timesharing output.

Illustrate, if the analog video signal bandwidth is 162MHz, consider the response characteristic of LCD interface circuit 200 and driving circuit 320 and the threshold impulse time delay of LCD plate 300, present embodiment uses about 40MHz (being divided into 4 parts).As shown in Figure 6, write enable signal WE1-WE4 by sets of waveforms (A) expression, they have the mistiming of 6.2nS each other.Further discuss, for multichannel synchronizing function monitor, the mistiming of writing enable signal WE1-WE4 may be with the frequency change of input analog video signal.This mistiming may influence writes enable signal WE1-WE4, and because the stray capacitance of PCB produces distortion.In this case, the preferred time difference of writing enable signal WE1-WE4 can be doubled to 12.4nS, represents as sets of waveforms (B).Can also, by center its length of 1/8 of output timing sampling, be reduced to two kinds of waveforms are only arranged thereby will write enable signal WE1-WE4 to writing enable signal WE1-WE4 in the effective clearance of digital of digital video data Dd1-Dd4.So just can in horizontal level controller 272, realize stable level control.Should be mentioned that frame memory FM1-FM4 can comprise a memory device in order to finish this control operation, data I/O operation is finished with asynchronous system in this memory device.

In sum, interface circuit of the present invention can effectively be controlled the horizontal level that uses shown image in the High Resolution LCD monitor that is higher than standard SXGA pattern.And the coarse adjustment function of horizontal level controller can be used for UXGA (super large XGA) display mode LCD monitor, and its incoming video signal bandwidth is about 200MHz.