Targeting battery-powered portable devices ranging from portable multimedia players (PMPs) to mobile tablets, the EMMA Mobile/EV1 and EMMA Mobile/EV2 system-on-chips (SoCs) boast power consumption thirty percent lower than the earlier EMMA Mobile 1, claims NEC. They'll compete with other Cortex A9-based chips such as the
TexasInstruments OMAP4 and Nvidia
Tegra 250.
EMMA Mobile/EV1 and EMMA Mobile/EV2
The EMMA Mobile/EV SoCs incorporate one or two
Cortex-A9 cores, which build upon the Cortex-A8 design with multi-core support by way of ARM's MPCore interconnect technology. NEC did not list clock speeds, but the Cortex-A9 was designed to clock to as much as 1GHz in the current generation (future versions will clock to as much as 2GHz).
The single (EV1) or dual (EV2) cores, which include ARM's Neon multimedia instruction set, are said to be paired with a 1080p HD-ready audio-visual (A/V) engine capable of decoding numerous digital video and audio formats (see spec table below). In addition the EV2 model offers Imagination Technology's SGX530 2D/3D graphics engine, says NEC.
Block diagrams for the EV1 (left) and dual-core EV2 (right)
(Click on either to enlarge)
The SoCs support both Mobile DDR and DDR2 memory, as well as several flash memory formats, says the company. Interfaces on both SoCs are said to include USB, IIC, and camera connections, just to name a few. The EMMA Mobile/EV offers technologies including automatic clock control, on-chip power switch, and quick recovery, enabling reduced power consumption compared to previous EMMA chips, says the company.
Operating system support for the EMMA Mobile/EV SoCs was not cited. Previous EMMA devices have primarily been associated with Linux, but, like other ARM-based chips, the NEC products are technically capable of running Windows CE or Windows Mobile.
Specifications listed for the EMMA Mobile/EV SoCs include:
- CPU -- ARM Cortex-A9 (533MHz FSB) with Neon, 32KB I/D cache, and 256KB L2 cache (2 x cores for EV2)
- AV engine:
- H.264 decode: BP/MP/HP Full HD (1920 x 1080)
- MPEG2 decode: MP Full HD
- MPEG4 decode: SP/ASP Full HD
- VC-1 decode: SP/MP/AP Full HD
- MP3, AACHE-AAC,WMA decode
- AC-3 decode Dolby digital 5.1ch
- Graphics/display:
- Image resize
- YUV/RGB image rotation
- LCD output image composition
- 2D/3D graphics engine (EV2 only) with Imagination Technology's SGX530 2D/3D core (4.7Mpolgon/sec 500Mpixel/sec)
- Flash -- Supports NOR, NAND, and eMMC
- I/O interfaces:
- LCD (RGB565/666/888)
- NTSC/PAL (ITU-R BT.656)
- Serial:
- UART (4-port)
- IIC (2-port)
- Multi-function serial (6-port), selectable to SPI or Audio
- USB 2.0 Host/Device
- 1-ch SD; 3-ch SDIO
- Camera (8-bit parallel)
- DTV (TS Serial)
- GPIO
- PWM
Further information
Samples of the EMMA Mobile/EV1 and EV2 SoCs are scheduled to be available in July at $50 per unit, says NEC. Mass production is scheduled for December, and is expected to reach one million units per month by 2011.
NEC Electronics plans to exhibit the EMMA Mobile EV SoCs in NEC's booth (Hall 8, Stand 8A125) next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. More information about the EMMA Mobile/EV SoCs can be found here.
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