David Carey, President, Portelligent (www.teardown.com)
TechOnline

It's watching you.

With the introduction of the Eye- Toy—made by NamTai—the Sony PS2 game console now has the ability to track body motions and recognize free-space gestures as part of interacting with a whole new class of entertainment software.

The Sony PS2 packs plenty of processing power in this case used for gesture recognition to tie user actions to computer-generated gameplay. Want to deck the opponent? Throw a punch and the system links position of the player's fist with the on-screen virtual opponent. Need to change a menu selection? Point at the on-screen icons and twiddle your finger just so to select the appropriate item.

Of course all this magic starts in the analog world. The $50 EyeToy, introduced in October of 2003, is primarily a video camera similar to those used for PC webcams. The product is based around the Omnivision OV7648 CMOS sensor which supports VGA resolution and captures decently-rendered full-motion video for combination with the computer graphics. Rather than immediately convert the analog pixel levels to digital data, the Omnivision chip takes a different path from the sensor competition. Fixed pattern noise (FPN) reduction, gain control, color matrix processing, and color space adjustments all reside on the imager chip itself and occur in the analog domain.

Of course not all things can be accomplished in the analog world. Further image processing is dealt with in the Omnivision coprocessor chip (OV519), which likely performs digital video compression and manages the translation of the imager output to the USB interface with the PS2. Audio conversion and coding for the built-in EyeToy microphone is also handled in the OV519. A small EEPROM from ISSI (IS93C66) provides storage for the embedded code needed for the coprocessor chip. Beyond these major ICs, three voltage regulators from Mitsumi are used for local regulation of the supplies to the two Omnivision chips and the ISSI memory.

Of the 90 electronic components used in the EyeToy design, the vast majority support analog functions whether image capture, power management, filtering, or signal conditioning. Including the CMOS sensor, analog content probably probably gets the lion's share of the estimated sub-$15 EyeToy electronics BOM as well.

While the EyeToy ships with a dozen games primarily for younger players, the implications of free-space manipulation for a broader audience are really quite intriguing. It seems gaming is moving towards an environment where physical movements by the player become the action versus just controlling the action.

David Carey is President of Portelligent. The Austin, Texas company produces teardown reports and related industry research on Wireless, Mobile, and Personal Electronics.