Point Grey, a world leader in the development of advanced digital camera systems, and Fresco Logic, a global fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops and sells USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed USB) connectivity solutions, jointly unveiled the world's first SuperSpeed USB-enabled digital video camera at the 2009 Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco. The live demonstration showcased the performance benefits of SuperSpeed USB by streaming uncompressed High Definition (HD) 1080p60 video from a Point Grey camera, equipped with a high performance Sony HD image sensor, to a USB 3.0 host controller from Fresco Logic on an ASUS P7P55D platform.

The prototype camera is designed and manufactured by Point Grey and uses the new 3 megapixel (MP) Sony IMX036 CMOS image sensor, which features high sensitivity, superior color fidelity, low power, and no smear. The sensor also supports an HD 1080p60 mode, which allows the camera to output raw, uncompressed 1920 x 1080 pixel images at 60 frames per second (FPS). Point Grey's own software driver provides low-level control of the camera via the USB 3.0 bus. The camera is connected to a USB 3.0 interface card on the host side which is powered by the FL1000, a PCI Express to SuperSpeed USB Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) host controller chip from Fresco Logic. The host PC uses an Intel i5-based P7P55D motherboard from ASUS.

"We are very excited to partner with Fresco Logic and be able to visually demonstrate the bandwidth offered by USB 3.0," says Vlad Tucakov, Director of Sales and Marketing at Point Grey. "One of the potential benefits of the increased bandwidth of USB 3.0 is that it allows the main processor to handle compression. This means that different types of compression can be used for different applications and that some applications, like face recognition, can work on uncompressed video data for increased performance. We certainly see USB 3.0 as a key interface technology for machine and computer vision, and one we plan to integrate into future Point Grey imaging products."

"The FL1000 provides customers with immediate and easy access to SuperSpeed USB's impressive bandwidth, and here we see how that bandwidth can be used to address the needs of next-generation HD video streaming applications," says Robert McVay, Chief Technical Officer at Fresco Logic. "Fresco Logic is very pleased to work with Point Grey to accelerate the adoption of SuperSpeed USB into more consumer applications, demonstrating how the FL1000 can reduce equipment vendors' time-to-market and offer an outstanding price/performance ratio."

"This is another key milestone for SuperSpeed USB," says Jeff Ravencraft, Chairman of the USB Implementers Forum. "We are very pleased to see Point Grey and Fresco Logic teaming up to demonstrate true uncompressed (HD) video streaming. This demonstration gives users insight into some of the other applications that are possible with SuperSpeed USB in addition to the high-speed data transfers with external storage devices that we have seen so far."