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Toshiba's New Digital Cameras to Use Raptor II Chip

LAS VEGAS -- Sierra Imaging, Inc. today announced that it will provide its new Raptor II embedded imaging chip to Toshiba, Inc. for use in state-of-the-art digital cameras. The agreement represents the first major OEM design win for the new chip, released in December 1999.

"The Raptor II chip provides the most advanced technology available," said Douglas Freck, vice president and general manager of the Imaging Systems Division at Toshiba. "It allows us to engineer a camera with fast processing speed and unsurpassed image quality, while maintaining the affordability that Toshiba customers have come to expect."

Raptor II is a second-generation embedded imaging chip integrating a five-element parallel SIMD image processor with a 32-bit RISC core. The powerful, highly integrated chip controls virtually all functions of a digital camera. Raptor II's throughput rates of up to 3.3 Mpixel/second for fully processed JPEG encoded images and its support of any CMOS or CCD sensors up to 16 million pixels make it a highly extensible choice for a variety of OEM cameras. Running the Sierra System Software Platform (S3P) RTOS, Raptor II requires no boot time and extends battery life by shutting down idle system components.

"We designed Raptor II from the ground up, optimizing it for high-performance battery powered imaging devices," said Barbara Matthews, vice president of marketing at Sierra Imaging. "We are thrilled that Toshiba has chosen Raptor II for their market-leading line of cameras."