AMD is sampling a highly integrated MIPS32-based SoC (system-on-chip) targeting portable media players (PMPs) capable of displaying content from PCs and PVRs (personal video recorders). The Alchemy Au1200 supports embedded Linux, and comes with media player software that exploits low-level hardware acceleration for multiple media formats.

According to AMD, the Alchemy Au1200 can be used to build devices that download and display content directly from PCs and from PVRs, without the time-consuming need to ``transcode`` the content, or convert it to any particular format. This is possible, AMD says, because the Au1200 features hardware acceleration for MPEG, DivX, H.263, and WMV9, along with an integrated graphics controller support supporting ``full D1 resolution.``

The Au1200 also features sophisticated power management capabilities, and saves power by eliminating the need for PMPs to be built with DSP (digital signal processor) co-processors, according to AMD.

The Au1200 will be produced in 333, 400, and 500MHz varieties, with the 333MHz model expected in Q2, 2005. The chip features a MIPS32 core with 16KB each of instruction and data cache, along with a truly suprising number of on-chip peripheral interfaces. Integrated peripherals include IDE, dual-UARTs, USB 2.0, GPIO, an SDIO/MMC card interface, AC`97 audio, and more.

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