Date: 13/05/2009

NEC's new EMMA SoCs for media players and mobile TVs

NEC Electronics has unveiled a new EMMA Mobile1 series of system-on-chips (SoCs), the EMMA Mobile 1-D, for use in portable audio/visual (A/V) devices such as multimedia players and mobile televisions. This device with dimensions measuring12.7 millimeter (mm) x 12.7mm offers real estate advantage on the PCB.
EMMA Mobile 1-D comes with embedded DRAM, where as another version called EMMA Mobile 1-S is without DRAM.

According to market study by Techno Systems Research 2008, the worldwide portable audio/video players market which includes MP3/MP4 players and mobile televisions is expected to grow from 10.0 million units in 2007 to 25.0 million units in 2010 at a yearly growth rate of 35 %. The technology trend in this market is to continuously improve the quality and the quantity of entertainment content available in these devices.

NEC Electronics has released first version of EMMA Mobile 1 in November 2008 as a new member of the mobile multimedia processor product line. The EMMA Mobile 1 packs a high-end ARM processor core ARM1176JZF-STM, an exclusive digital signal processing (DSP) core, and an H.264 video compression function unit.
NEC Electronics says, EMMA SoC uses state-of-the-art low power technology, capable of decoding and playback MP3 and AAC audio contents and video contents on a D1-size screen (720 x 480 pixels) at 30fps(Note), at an outstanding level of low power state.

Availability: Now in samples, volumes in October 2009

Price:
EMMA Mobile 1-D: Each at US$40
EMMA Mobile 1-S: Each at US$30

NEC cautions pricing and availability are subject to change.