Nvidia Corporation

Nvidia International, Inc.

John C Schafer

Gerrit Ary Slavenburg

Stephen Donald Lew

Thomas Francis Fox

Taner E Ozcelik

Jen-Hsun Huang

Robert M Nally

Circuits, methods, and apparatus that provide highly integrated digital media processors for digital consumer electronics applications. These digital media processors are capable of performing the parallel processing of multiple format audio, video, and graphics signals. In one embodiment, audio and video signals may be received from a variety of input devices or appliances, such as antennas, VCRs, DVDs, and networked devices such as camcorders and modems, while output audio and video signals may be provided to output devices such as televisions, monitors, and networked devices such as printers and networked video recorders. Another embodiment of the present invention interfaces with a variety of devices such as navigation, entertainment, safety, memory, and networking devices. This embodiment can also be configured for use in a digital TV, set-top box, or home server. In this configuration, video and audio streams may be received from a number of cable, satellite, Internet, and consumer devices.

Digital media processor

A graphics and video controlleris provided which includes a dual aperture interfacefor receiving words of graphics and video pixel data, each word of such data associated with an address directing that word to be processed as either graphics or video data. Circuitryis provided for writing a word of the pixel data received from the interfaceto a one of the on- and off-screen memory areas corresponding to the address associated with the received word. Circuitryis provided for selectively retrieving graphics and video data from the on-screen and off-screen memory areas. A first pipelineis provided for processing data received from the on-screen area of frame bufferwhile a second pipelineis provided for processing data retrieved from the off-screen area of the frame buffer.

Apparatus, systems and methods for controlling graphics and video data in multimedia data processing and display systems

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

John C Schafer