Renesas Electronics and Renesas Mobile strengthen R-Car product lineups with R-Car E1 automotive SoC

SANTA CLARA, USA: Renesas Electronics Corp. and its subsidiary, Renesas Mobile Corp., announced a new member of the R-Car series of automotive systems-on-chip (SoCs), the R-Car E1 device, offering low power consumption and high system integration targeting the cost-sensitive markets of car navigation and multimedia systems including high-end car radios.

With the R-Car E1 SoC, Renesas strengthens its position in entry navigation systems, as this device offers a perfect balance between system integration and cost. The R-Car E1 device is powered with a single ARM Cortex-A9 32-bit RISC CPU core (enhanced with the NEONTM extension) running at 533 megahertz (MHz), which achieves a maximum processing power of 1,330 Dhrystone million instructions per second (DMIPS). The graphics processor unit (GPU) is Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR SGX531 and processes up to 14M triangles/s and is capable of delivering up to 1.4 gigaflops for accelerated graphics.

To help customers minimize board space and costs of their navigation solutions, targeting emerging markets and cost-sensitive applications, the R-Car E1 SoC has a balanced selection of integrated peripherals and functions. With multiple channels of 10-bit A/D converters, customers can simplify the interface to gyroscopes and accelerometers. The R-Car E1 SoC also offers CD-ROM hardware-decoding capabilities and media interfaces for digital formats such as SD and USB.

Two output displays are supported—one output display is a digital RGB interface targeted for the main screen, while the second is an analog output supporting PAL/NTSC formats, enabling cost-effective, rear-seat entertainment. The integrated digital-camera interface facilitates the integration of a backup camera or external video content. The R-Car E1 video processing unit (VPU) is capable of decoding up to 720p HD video codecs.

Equipped with various standard and automotive communication interfaces (CAN, MOST, Ethernet, UART, SPI, I²S, I²C), the R-Car E1 SoC can handle additional external devices and can be linked into common automotive networks.

Samples of Renesas’ R-Car E1 SoC are available now, equipped in a 429-pin BGA (ball grid array) package, priced at US$30 per sample unit. Mass production is scheduled to begin in June 2012 and reach a rate of 100,000 units per month in June 2013.