| RMI ships new MIPS SoCs with Windows CE support |
Jun. 05, 2007
Raza Microelectronics Inc. (RMI) on June 4 announced production availability of its Au1250 Media Processor and Au1210 Navigation Processor. The chips are supported by a development board and a suite of production software that includes media applications and a Windows CE 5.0 board-support package (BSP), according to the company.
The new SoCs (system-on-chip processors) are pin- and software-compatible with the older Au1200, according to RMI.
The Au1250 clocks at up to 600 MHz and offers "full D1 (720 x 480) video decode resolution with MPEG 1, 2, 4, wmv9, and Xvid," while offering power reductions in excess of 30 percent when active, and 60 percent when inactive, relative to the earlier Au1200. These features, according to RMI, make it well suited for use as the basis of multifunction portable media player devices.
The Au1210, meanwhile, clocks at up to 400MHz and supports video decode up to Wide-CIF (480 x 288) resolution, making it useful for cost-sensitive "single-purpose media applications" and portable navigation devices "where full D1 video resolution is not required," RMI said.
The Au1210 and Au1250 are pin- and software compatible with the earlier Au1200
Both new chips provide boot-from-NAND support, which eliminates the requirement for external NOR flash. Additionally, both are available in extended temperature versions.
RMI says it has updated its Windows CE 5.0 BSP to support the new Au1250 and Au1210 processors. New features in this support are said to include "dramatically lower" power consumption and "extensive" enhancements to USB 2.0 capabilities.
Already being used in production
According to RMI, the new chips are already being used in production by two Korean device makers: digitalCube and Carpoint. digitalCube manufactures a combination video and audio player/GPS/photo album, while Carpoint builds GPS navigational devices.
Dr. Yeonsik Yu, CEO of Digital Cube, stated, "The ability to play multiple video formats at D1 resolution with less than 500 mW is enabling technology. At 600MHz, it provides ample processor performance so we can expand the innovative applications and technologies which have propelled Digital Cube to become today's leader in portable media."
Dong-Hoon Park, director of marketing at Carpoint, stated, "The Au1200, and now Au1250 processors, are central to our Multifunction PND strategy. The pin-compatible Au1200-Series processors, including the new Au1210 and Au1250 processors, allow us to expand our family of Navigation products based on a single platform design giving us the flexibility to efficiently implement lower cost and higher performance SKUs that our customers demand."
Last year, RMI acquired AMD's MIPS RISC architecture-based Alchemy SoC processor line and business unit. The Au1250 and Au1210 are the first chips RMI has released since the acquisition.
Availability
The Au1250 and Au1210 SoCs, and the associated DBAu1250 development board, are currently shipping. Pricing was not disclosed.
RMI is offering the updated Windows CE BSP as a free download for registered customers through its embedded developers site.
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