Toshiba's HD DVD Player: Pushing the Performance Envelop

By Rich Nass

April 9, 2007

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This was the most complex Tear Down I've done. Most of the projects I tackle are based on a single function, and in most cases, there's an ASIC or high-end CPU that handles most of the processing functionality. In this case, there was a processor for each subsystem and lots of glue logic to tie it all together.

The system du jour is a Toshiba high-density (HD) DVD player, the HD-1A. These DVD players have been around for a long time, right? The technology is simple, right? Just a couple of high-volume ASICs, right? Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

First, while standard-definition DVD players have been around for along time, the HD version is relatively new. Second, the technology is far from simple. The number of bits that must be processed for both the audio and video is tremendously high. And third, because the technology is so new and evolving rapidly, the move to ASICs has not occurred yet. As you can see from the photo of the board, processors abound.

For example, to handle the audio processor, Toshiba chose an Analog Devices Sharc DSP, the 21262. The process of integrating those DSPs took roughly six months. The first interaction between the two companies occurred in early 2005. The 21262 offers 32-bit floating-point performance, which is needed for the high-quality audio processing. This includes efficiently handling 24-bit converter inputs without having an overflow and loss of bits.

The pair of Sharcs on this board are running at 200 MHz, while the family goes up to 400 MHz. ADI claims that they've also found a home in Denon, Sony, and Bose systems. The 21262 contains 2 Mbits of RAM and the 266 add 4 Mbits of ROM. That ROM space holds the audio algorithms, which include Dolby digital decoding, DTS decoding, and Dolby Pro Logic II post processing.

"That's one of the reasons our customers like these parts, because of the completeness of algorithms," says Colin Duggan, a product line director at Analog Devices.

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