Freescale extends product family that pioneered smartbook category to address additional embedded markets

AUSTIN, USA: The Freescale i.MX51 product family that helped establish the fast-growing smartbook category has been expanded to include new processors designed to help customers differentiate and win in automotive, industrial and consumer markets.

The new devices are the i.MX514 and i.MX516 processors for automotive applications and the i.MX512 and i.MX513 processors for industrial and consumer applications.

In addition to these new offerings, the previously announced i.MX515 processor is shipping in volume quantities to smartbook manufacturers and is expanding availability to include industrial and additional consumer applications.

To complement the i.MX51 processors, the company also has introduced a power management device, the MC13892, that helps enable smaller, more energy-efficient products that deliver high performance with low power consumption.

“The newest members of the celebrated i.MX51 family deliver compelling blends of features and functionality to meet the stringent requirements of the automotive, industrial and consumer markets,” said Bernd Lienhard, vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Multimedia Applications Division.

“Freescale’s long track record of enabling and optimizing the power and performance advantages of ARM technology continues with the introduction of these new devices.”

All devices in the i.MX51 family are pin-compatible and based on Freescale’s highly optimized implementation of the ARM Cortex-A8 core. The products integrate five processing engines and deliver a variety of video, graphics and multimedia feature combinations to meet specific market requirements.

The i.MX51 family products feature a vast array of connectivity options and support multiple memory types, including DDR2 – an extremely cost-effective technology that can reduce bill of materials up to $3 (USD) per product.

To streamline development and deliver a more comprehensive solution across multiple markets, Freescale offers board support packages (BSPs) for the Linux OS, Windows Embedded CE6.0 and the Android OS, all optimized for the i.MX51 family.