CxProcess is the

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

of an

image processing An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a pr ...

technology used in

Minolta was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, lenses, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It made the first integrated ...

and

Konica Minolta is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Marunouchi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda, Tokyo, with offices in 49 countries worldwide. The company manufactures business and industrial imaging products, in ...

digital cameras. Image processing in a camera converts the raw image data from a CCD image sensor into the format that is stored on the

memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras as well as in many early games conso ...

. This processing is one of the bottlenecks in the speed of digital cameras. Between 2001 and 2006, CxProcess was used in various Minolta and Konica Minolta digital compact cameras, bridge cameras, and DSLRs. In order to distinguish the image processing algorithms from the image processor, the image processor was named SUPHEED (for ''superior image and speed'') since 2003. It can be seen as the predecessor of

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

's Bionz image processor since their taking-over of Konica Minolta's camera business in 2006. CxProcess was originally introduced with the Minolta DiMAGE 5 in 2001. SUPHEED was introduced with the DiMAGE A1 in 2003, which was also the first to implement CxProcess II. Cameras such as the DiMAGE 7 series (DiMAGE 7, 7i, 7Hi), A1, and A2 used a MegaChips (MCL) DSC-2 MA07163 series of

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...

RISC In electronics and computer science, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer architecture designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a comp ...

processors with MIPS R3000 core. The cameras ran under Integrated Systems' (ISI) operating system

pSOSystem pSOS (Portable Software On Silicon) is a real-time operating system (RTOS), created in about 1982 by Alfred Chao, and developed and marketed for the first part of its life by his company Software Components Group (SCG). In the 1980s, pSOS rap ...

/MIPS (pSOS+/MIPS V2.5.4, pREPC+/MIPS V2.5.2, pHILE+/MIPS FA V4.0.2, pNA+/MIPS V4.0.5). The CxProcess III was implemented in the Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D (2004) and 5D (2005) utilizing SUPHEED II, a MegaChips DSC-3H MA07168 running under MiSPO's NORTi/MIPS, an RTOS following the μITRON standard. While no longer named CxProcess III on SUPHEED II, this was also implemented in the Sony Alpha 100 (2006), utilizing a MegaChips MA07169. Sony introduced their Bionz image processor in 2007 that was originally based on this same technology.

References

Minolta Konica Minolta Camera firmware Image processors {{electronics-stub

See also

References