Renesas Electronics intros EMMA mobile EV0-D SoCs for portable audio-visual devices with one-third reduced package

SANTA CLARA, USA: Renesas Electronics has announced the availability of new systems-on-chip (SoCs) that achieve playback of audio and video data in a single chip for portable audio-visual (AV) devices, including multimedia players, electronic book readers and network TVs.

The new SoCs are EMMA Mobile EV series products that incorporate the latest ARM Cortex A9 high-performance CPU and integrate on a single chip the functions necessary for MPEG2, MPEG4 and H.264 HDTV (1920 × 1080 pixels) video playback.

The new SoCs feature a reduced package size by approximately one-third from the company’s existing 16 × 16 millimeter (mm) package to 9 × 9 mm, and also include DRAM within the same package. These features contribute to miniaturization of the systems and also facilitate design configuration by eliminating the need for high-speed DRAM interface design. However, to respond to a wide range of market needs, Renesas Electronics also has developed the EMMA Mobile EV0-S SoCs that do not include DRAM.

The new SoCs make it possible to design portable AV devices, e-books and other embedded systems with high functionality and performance, with faster time-to-market and at a low cost. Recently, a large number of diverse products in the portable and handheld space that reproduce multimedia data, such as multimedia players and e-books, have emerged with market growth at an average rate of 10 percent per year, and is expected to reach 450 million units annually by 2013.

Further, TVs and other information equipment are evolving toward higher functionality and performance due to internet connectivity, thereby creating a new multimedia AV equipment market for devices with even higher levels of multimedia functionality.

Since the product life cycle in the multimedia AV market is short, competition is fierce, and the market has strong demands for the early release of semiconductors that can implement compact mobile AV devices at low cost while providing necessary functions for multimedia data reproduction. Renesas Electronics’ new SoCs were developed to meet these needs.

Main functions of the SoCs:

Package size reduced by approximately one-third from existing SoCs
By adopting a system design optimized for market needs, Renesas Electronics was able to keep the chip size and pin count down to the absolute minimum. As a result, the company reduced the package size by approximately one-third that of the existing EMMA Mobile EV SoCs, from a 16 × 16 mm package to 9 × 9 mm.

DRAM included in the same package
Using SiP (system-in-package) technology, Renesas Electronics included optimal-size DRAM in the same package. In addition to supporting system miniaturization, this also obviates the need for designing a high-speed interface with an external DRAM and contributes to easier end-product circuit-board design.

Renesas Electronics positions these new SoCs as strategic products for the mobile AV field and plans to actively market them. Additionally, in cooperation with partner companies, Renesas Electronics also will provide an evaluation and development environment that reduce the system designers’ development burden.

Further, Renesas Electronics plans to integrate the new SoCs into the company’s “R-Mobile" series, which are SoCs for mobile devices developed through Renesas Electronics’ new integrated SoC platform that integrates core technologies essential for the future networked society.

Samples of Renesas Electronics' new EMMA Mobile EV0-D and EMMA Mobile EV0-S SoCs are scheduled for availability starting April 2011 with expected pricing of US$35 and US$30 per unit respectively in sample quantities. Mass production is scheduled to begin in October 2011 and is expected to reach 1,000,000 units per month.