VV6500

STMicroelectronics (ST), Imaging Division (formerly VLSI VISION Ltd.), STV0680A has utilised its extensive experience in designing imaging sensors for the digital still camera market to develop chipsets for modular systems, STV0680A will provide the core of a highly cost-competitive new standard in consumer digital stills cameras (DSC).

The Low Cost Digital Camera chipsets from ST, incorporating a CMOS imaging sensor and STV0680A co-processor (formerly DCA1 ) enable camera manufacturers to offer an end product STV0680A is genuinely price competitive with traditional 'point and shoot' film-based cameras.

The STV0680A chipset provides the basis of an easy-to-use, user friendly camera, which will be equally adaptable for use by children and adults for stills photography or dual-mode use (i.e. Digital stills while untethered, and videoconferencing from the same camera).

Incorporating a wide range of features, the STV0680A chipset offers exceptional performance at a very competitive price point. ST's aim is to enable manufacturers to offer fully functional DSC products to the end consumer for between $50 and $100. An evaluation kit (EVK) and reference design manual of STV0680A are available, as well as standard TWAIN and Video for Windows drivers. Alternatively, a software development kit (SDK) allows access to ST colour processing algorithms under licence, to develop OEM software.

The STV0680A chipset incorporates ST's high performance VV6444/ 6410 CIF (352 x 288 pixel) or VV6500 VGA (640 x 480 pixel) resolution CMOS sensors. The complete camera will have 20 picture storage capacity for CIF resolution or 80 for QCIF resolution, when using 16MBit memory. When using 64MBit memory, STV0680A will have 26 picture storage capacity for VGA resolution or 106 for QVGA resolution. A standby mode which allows full picture retention at extremely low system power consumption gives a battery life of up to several months. An example upload and colour processing time for a CIF image to the PC is 0.3 seconds when the USB interface is used, and the STV0680A chipset also offers a high frame rate tethered USB video mode (dependant on PC and USB loading).

The STV0680A chipset supports a 2x 7-segment display showing number of pictures remaining, a low battery indicator, and operation mode, as well as a buzzer indicating picture taken, camera full, and self-timer countdown. A CMOS STV0680A solution gives manufacturers inherent benefits, providing a highly integrated compact solution which has a low system cost, is straightforward to implement, and has low power consumption, giving long battery life.