Date: 25/10/2012

USB 2/3.0, SATA, PCIe, Ethernet MAC and TS all in a single interface bridge SoC chip

Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited has announced the development of Interface Bridge SoC "MB86E631," which integrates a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and a host of different interfaces on a single chip. Sample quantities of the new product are to start shipping in late December 2012.

The spread of smartphones and tablets has led to the availability of Wi-Fi TV tuner products that allow TV to be viewed on customer mobile devices. Such products are equipped with transcoder LSIs for performing video format and resolution conversion, as well as Wi-Fi modules and other technologies. A number of challenges are involved in picking a CPU for controlling these technologies.

Multi-decoder LSIs utilized in video recording devices and communications processors for networking products are too powerful, whereas the performance of low-cost CPUs, such as microcontrollers, is deficient.

At the same time, customers who manufacture video recording devices, TVs with built-in recording capabilities, and other products have expressed the need for a CPU with the ability to control a variety of interfaces capable of connecting to a broad range of different equipment.

Fujitsu Semiconductor developed Interface Bridge system-on-chip (SoC) "MB86E631" as an LSI that has been optimized to meet this need for both performance and functionality.

The MB86E631 features a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor (~500MHz operations) as its CPU core and brings together a total of 10 different interfaces such as USB2.0/3.0, Serial ATA, PCI Express, Ethernet MAC and TS—all on a single chip. This product is optimal for use together with a transcoder LSI in Wi-Fi TV tuner applications SoC and can also be employed as a CPU for interface control in multi-tuner devices and other applications in which control of multiple interfaces is required. In addition, the new chip leads to the development of a new market that extends beyond video delivery and recording devices to include products that need performance greater than that of microcontrollers and support for multiple interfaces.

Fujitsu Semiconductor offers reference boards featuring MB86E631 together with the company's transcoder LSI. DLNA-compatible reference boards for Linux are also available as a solution for Wi-Fi TV tuner products.

Source: Fujitsu