Chips&Media Lands AV2 Hardware Decoder IP Deal with North American Big Tech

This deal puts a hardware AV2 decode path into a major device maker's flagship roadmap before any consumer GPU or mobile SoC has shipped AV2 silicon. That matters because AV2 software decoding is estimated at roughly 5x the complexity of AV1, making hardware acceleration a prerequisite for any meaningful deployment. For OTT platforms like YouTube and Netflix, which drove AV1 adoption, hardware decoder availability in flagship devices is the gating factor for AV2 rollout. Watch for the identity of the unnamed North American client — if it is Google or Apple, the AV2 timeline compresses significantly.

The AV2 specification reached its final v1.0.0 release on May 28, 2026, with AOMedia officially announcing the codec on June 9, 2026. Per AOMedia's press release, AV2 was developed under a royalty-free patent policy and builds on the Emmy Award-winning AV1 codec, with board-level founding members including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, NVIDIA, and Samsung. AOMedia's own 2025 member survey found that 53% of respondents plan to adopt AV2 within 12 months of the final spec, and 88% within two years. Per Neowin (June 2026), official AOMedia evaluations report average bitrate reductions of approximately 30–34% at equivalent visual quality compared to AV1.

However, the path to adoption faces significant hurdles. Per the Streaming Learning Center (June 2026), AV2 decoding is estimated at roughly five times the complexity of AV1 decoding in software, citing Jean-Baptiste Kempf of VideoLAN. This means software-only playback will be impractical on most existing consumer devices, making hardware IP deals like Chips&Media's agreement especially consequential — they are the gating factor for any timeline. As of June 2026, no consumer GPU or mobile SoC vendor has publicly announced AV2 hardware decode support.

Chips&Media's AV2 deal is its second major licensing announcement in weeks. On June 10, 2026, the company also licensed its latest-generation video codec IP to Ambarella (NASDAQ: AMBA) for edge AI and autonomous driving applications, per GlobeNewswire (June 2026). That same week, Chips&Media announced completion of its AV2 hardware decoder IP development, positioning itself as one of the first IP providers with silicon-ready AV2 decode blocks following the spec's finalization.

Patent uncertainty also looms. Per the Streaming Learning Center (June 2026), Sisvel — a Luxembourg-based patent pool administrator — has already signaled plans to establish an AV2 patent pool, mirroring its approach with AV1. Additionally, Avanci Video and Access Advance Video Distribution programs, which offer one-stop streaming licenses covering HEVC, VVC, AV1, and VP9, are expected to include AV2 as well. For smaller device makers, these patent dynamics add cost and legal risk that could slow chip-level adoption even as major platforms push forward.