New generation of Panasonic UniPhier

Panasonic has just released the next generation of UniPhier that takes advantage of MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, a compression/decompression method used for HD content. This chip’s job is to compress full-HD large image data down to approximately one third to half that of the conventional methods without visible image deterioration, which translates into extended recording time for the same media.

Manufactured using the 45nm process (a measure for how small transistors are), the UniPhier has 250 million transistors, which is almost as much as the Intel Core 2 (291M). Using a smaller manufacturing process lets the chip designer reduce the cost by having as many transistors on a smaller chip, or add more functions for a given chip size.