Stmicroelectronics Asia Pacific Pte Limited

Kah-Ho Phong

Lucas Y W Hui

Jean-Michel Bard

Swee-San Tee

A cache memory system is used in a motion estimation system. The system includes: a first cache memory defined in terms of a first width and a first height, and a second cache memory defined in terms of a second width and a second height, wherein said second height is less than said first height, the cache memory system being operable in one of two modes: the first mode being characterized by banks of memory from the second cache memory being concatenated vertically such that their concatenated height is at least equal to the first height, and said concatenated banks being arranged to be appended to the width of the first cache memory to form a single contiguous address space; and the second mode being characterized by banks of memory from the first and second cache being stacked vertically, and being arranged to be addressed as two separate address spaces.

Cache memory system

A method of selecting a motion vector for use in a motion estimation system in which the motion vector defines movement of a block of pixels between a search window and a reference frame. The method includes the steps of scanning a search window in a fixed order for a suitable match with an area of the reference frame such that each search position within a current row or column of the window is one pixel away from a previous search position, defining a preferred point in the search window, calculating a primary norm function with reference to the preferred point for a given position in each row or column, calculating a norm function for each search position based on a linear increment of the primary norm function for the respective row or column, calculating an Absolute Error (AE) for each search position, based on a difference between a given property of the search position and a position in the reference window, and selecting a motion vector, the displacement of the motion vector defined in terms of the search position having the smallest AE and the smallest norm function. An apparatus for performing the method is also disclosed.

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Singapore, Singapore

Kah-Ho Phong