Austin-based Freescale Semiconductor Inc. (FSL) announced a trio of new members to the company’s i.MX50 product family, placing a big bet on the thriving eReader device market while more powerful tablet computers threaten to unseat eReaders.
The family of i.MX50 chips launched in 2010 with the i.MX508, a SoC, or system-on-chip design that combines an ARM Cortex-A8 processing core with a hardware display controller for E Ink electrophoretic displays. The all-in-one solution by the company is designed for powerful eReader devices and Freescale is hopint the new i.MX chips will fill gaps in the product line where using the i.MX508 is too expensive to use.
On the low-end, the i.MX502 provides LCD-based gadgets with decent processing power due to a 800Mhz ARM Cortex-A8 processing core with 256KB L2 cache at a much lower price than the i.MX508. The i.MX503 is a little upgrade with the same SoC design as its cheaper brother but with an upgrade to the graphics capabilities to add OpenVG 1.1 hardware acceleration at resolutions as high as SXGA+ and higher-end user interfaces.
At the top end, the i.MX507 uses the same central and graphics processing as the i.MX503 but adds an integrated electrophoretic display driver which can run up to 4096 by 4096 resolution E Ink screens at the same time as an SXGA+LCD display.
”E Ink is collaborating with Freescale to integrate hardware, simplify design and lower overall system costs,” said Giovanni Mancini, director of product management for E Ink Holdings. “This collaboration is creating new markets for ePaper and Semiconductor solutions.”
The company confirmed plans to launch an evaluation kit to give developers the chance to try the chips out in real-world scenarios before basing their product lines around them, along with an eReader reference design based on the higher-end, EPD-equipped parts. The new i.MX50 chips are sampling as of now with volume availability expected later this quarter.
“Freescale is delivering comprehensive, optimised solutions with power savings and flexible design features, allowing customers one-stop shopping, ease-of-use and quick time to market,” said Ken Obuszewski, director of product marketing at Freescale. “Our new i.MX50 devices offer an outstanding solution for simplified display applications, and now with a comprehensive portfolio to choose from, customers can pick the best option for their specific product needs.”
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