Date: 11/11/2009

New SoCs from NEC Electronics for automotive infotainment systems

NEC Electronics is sampling new system-on-chips (SoCs), the EC-4260 (NaviEngine-MID) and EC-4250 (NaviEngine-mini) for use in automotive infotainment systems. The new devices are designed for applications such as navigation, infotainment, and telematics systems.

NEC Electronics first introduced the EC-4270 (NaviEngine) with four embedded CPU cores in 2007. The EC-4260 with three CPU cores and EC-4250 with two CPU cores are now also available along with the EC-4270 to widely support the expanding market of car-navigation systems, particularly in Japan, Europe and the U.S. The EC-4260 and EC-4250 are the first members of NEC Electronics' new EMMATM Car series of automotive system LSI devices.

As the demand for new features in automotive infotainment systems grows at a fast pace, there is a growing need for high CPU performance to keep pace. At the same time small power consumption is required. NEC Electronics' EC-4260 and EC-4250 SoCs address these needs with a multi-core approach. Using three ARM-11TM cores from ARM Ltd., the EC-4260 SoC operates at 1440 MIPS (at 400 MHz), while the EC-4250 performs 960 MIPS using two ARM-11 cores. Basing these devices design engineers access to an array of software elements, which will both shorten design time and lower software development costs.

The multi-core architecture also supports symmetrical multi processing (SMP) mode. In this mode, a single version of the operating system (OS) is running on the multiple cores, and tasks are dynamically allocated to cores at runtime, maximizing the utilization of available processing power.

The new devices also include a graphics-processing unit (GPU) that realizes 2D/3D imaging. The EC-4260 SoC enables 2D/3D imaging and supports OpenGL ES and OpenVG specifications. The EC-4250 enables 2D imaging and supports OpenVG specification. These features provide graphics software compatibility contributing to faster time-to market for system designers.

The new products feature USB, MOST bus, CAN, I2S and I2C. Also included is an audio routing engine that has sample rate conversion capability.

Price:
EC-4260: $140 per unit
EC-4250: $70 per unit
Availability: Now in samples, Mass production to begin in 2010

For more details visit www.necel.com


Editorial Product Rating: Average