Product category:
Microprocessors, Microcontrollers and DSPs
News Release from: Texas Instruments (April 2001-March 2006) | Subject: OMAP processor for automotive infotainment
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 23 June 2005
Processor focuses on automotive
infotainment
Texas Instruments has introduced a new OMAP processor for high-performance, feature-rich automotive infotainment products, including digital media and hard disk drive-based head-units.
Texas Instruments has introduced a new OMAP processor for high-performance, feature-rich automotive infotainment products, including digital media and hard disk drive-based head-units Additionally, TI and SMSC's Automotive Infotainment Systems (AIS) business unit have established a licensing agreement enabling TI to deliver automotive application processors that integrate SMSC's MediaLB communication bus, facilitating an interface to MOST (Media Oriented System Transport) multimedia networks
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 8 Nov 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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By selecting TI's new OMAP processor with the integration of MediaLB, tier-one automotive suppliers will future-proof their designs due to the capability of interfacing with all existing and upcoming MOST speed grades and physical layers.
Key to the efficient implementation of the MediaLB interface is the Digital Audio Routing Engine (DARtE), which provides the interconnection between the MediaLB interface, up to six I2S digital audio ports, and TI's digital signal processor (DSP).
The DARtE performs multiple channels of hardware mixing, sample rate conversion, framing and scheduling of audio streams, offloading up to 100MHz of DSP bandwidth and simplifying the management of multiple audio streams.
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"TI's dual-core OMAP technology provides us with the multimedia performance and integrated peripherals we need to compete cost-effectively", says Georg Sandhaus, Director of Systems Engineering at Blaupunkt Driver Information Systems Group, a division of Bosch.
"TI's focus on the needs of the automotive industry, including the support of MediaLB, gives us not only a BOM cost advantage over our competition, but a significant time-to-market advantage as well".
TI's new automotive infotainment processor introduces several important capabilities compared with previous devices, including USB 2.0-compliant full-speed host, client and On-The-Go ports; Secure Digital (SD) memory card interface; integrated LCD controller with on-chip frame buffer; hardware ATA interface; and an on-chip 10-channel, 10bit A/D convertor and advanced ADC controller for supporting system-level functions such as monitoring radio signal strength or interfacing to low-cost gyroscopes.
"MOST enables OEMs to move away from complex, single-box infotainment systems and introduce cost-effective, new multimedia functions simply by adding components to an efficient network", says Herbert Hetzel, founder of Oasis SiliconSystems (which was acquired by SMSC in March 2005) and Managing Director of SMSC's AIS business unit.
"TI's commitment and support for the MOST platform will help to build further momentum for the technology throughout the world and help to establish MediaLB as a global industry standard for interchip multimedia connectivity".
MOST multimedia networking technology, which is the standard in European luxury cars, enables new classes of multimedia application connectivity.
It facilitates the efficient transport of real-time streaming multimedia and control and packet information over a single wire or optical fibre.
This eliminates the need to run multiple buses throughout a vehicle and enables OEMs to decentralise infotainment functions into various components distributed around the vehicle.
For example, a remote DVD player can be controlled by the radio head-unit while delivering audio and video over the same network for playback at several locations simultaneously.
Today's chip-to-chip interface solutions have lacked a high-speed, low pin-count bus capable of carrying all possible multimedia data types, including audio and video streams, and control and packet data for applications such as navigation map information.
SMSC is working to establish MediaLB as an open industry standard to provide fast, powerful and cost-efficient solutions for these systems.
The MediaLB interface provides improved access to the MOST bus through a single interface, simplifying design and increasing overall throughput, while reducing pin count, system cost, chip size and overall power consumption.
MediaLB reduces complexity and offers a synchronous and serial onboard and inter-chip communication bus to the MOST network.
MediaLB is highly scalable.
It is future-proof and will be used on all current and future SMSC MOST network ICs.
Currently sampling to automotive infotainment customers with evaluation modules (EVMs) available in Q3 2005, TI expects that the newest OMAP processor for automotive infotainment products will receive AEC Q-100 qualification by the end of the year.
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