NOVEMBER 12--OmniVision Technologies Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA), an independent supplier of CMOS CameraChipT solutions for high-volume imaging applications, and Cypress Semiconductors Inc. (San Jose, CA; www.cypress.com), a manufacturer of high-performance integrated-circuit solutions, have announced the Universal Serial Bus (USB) high-speed, stand-alone camera module reference design for their OEM manufacturing partners. The USB high-speed camera module comprises an OmniVision CameraChipT and the Cypress EZ-USB FX2T USB 2.0 high-speed microcontroller, providing a completely integrated solution.

"In the past, camera manufacturers faced costly and lengthy engineering, development, and deployment problems when designing USB full-speed solutions," said James He, vice president of core technology, OmniVision Technologies. "OmniVision's USB high-speed camera module reference design simplifies production issues and eliminates the need for compression to achieve 30 frames/s video. Overall, this is a significant advancement in performance, time to market, and cost savings for camera manufacturers and is a significant achievement for OmniVision."

Paul Novell, director of marketing at Cypress' Personal Communications Division, said, "The EZ-USB FX2T architecture ensures sustained high-performance data-transfer rates and a general programmable interface that allows it to support all common bus standards. Both of these factors enable its support for the stringent interface demands that digital video places on any system."

The USB camera modules are designed to improve time to market for camera manufacturers by providing the completely integrated design of a camera and USB 2.0 microcontroller, a flexible, yet cost-effective single-chip solution from Cypress. This module will be precertified by the USB Implementers Forum, ensuring that it has successfully passed compliance tests, giving OEM customers the assurance of design, operation, and channel-acceptance. OmniVision is offering this module in VGA (640 x 480), SVGA (800 x 600), and 1.3-Mpixel, or SXGA, (1280 x 1024) resolutions.

Additionally, the new OmniVision camera module is well suited for personal-digital-assistant and hand-held products, offering device connectivity via the high-speed USB interface. USB links PCs to peripherals in true "plug-and-play" fashion, making PCs much easier to use. The USB 2.0 standard, which transmits data at up to 480 Mbits/s, makes the speed of the peripheral-to-PC connection up to 40 times faster than the USB 1.1 specification.