Renesas RZ/A1 Cortex A9 Processors Feature Up to 10 MB On-chip RAM

Renesas Electronics has recently introduced the RZ/A1 group of ARM Cortex-A9 microprocessors (MPUs) for automotive, consumer and industrial applications requiring user interfaces with displays with a resolution up to 1280×768 (WXGA). The RZ/A1 series will come in three product groups: RZ/A1H, RZ/A1M and RZ/A1L with respectively 10MB, 5MB and 3MB on-chip RAM. These Renesas SoCs are an upgrade to SH7260 Series. Key Features (Included in A1H and A1M, but not always in A1L): Core – ARM Cortex A9 @ up to 400 MHz (with Jazelle and NEON) GPU – OpenVG-compliant Renesas graphics processor (2D graphics) Cache – 32-Kbyte L1 instruction cache, a 32-Kbyte L1 data cache, and a 128-Kbyte L2 cache. Built-in memory –  Up to 10-Mbyte large-capacity RAM (128 Kbytes are shared by the data-retention RAM) for A1H, 5MB for A1M, and 3MB for A1L External memory Up to 66.67 MHz bus Direct connection to SRAM, byte select SRAM, […]

Renesas R-Car H2 is an Octo Core big.LITTLE Processor for Your Car

Renesas announced a new automotive SoC called the R-Car H2 that features 4 Cortex-A15 cores together with 4 Cortex A7 cores (optional) in big.LITTLE configuration, as well as an Imagination PowerVR Series6 G6400 GPU. This SoC can optionally come with Renesas SH-4A, a real-time processing CPU core acting as a multimedia engine (MME) , and Renesas’ IMP-X4 core, a real-time image processing unit that enables developers to implement augmented reality application such as 360-degree camera views and image recognition. This Renesas processor is a multimedia power house, as it can handle 4x 1080p video en/decoding, including Blu-Ray support at 60 frames per second, as well as image/voice recognition and high-resolution 3D graphics with virtually no CPU usage. Here are R-Car H2’s specifications provided on Renesas website: Product number R8A7790x Power supply voltage 3.3/1.8 V (IO), 1.5/1.35 V (DDR3), 1.0 V (Core) CPU core ARM Cortex-A15 Quad ARM Cortex-A7 Quad (device […]

Renesas Unveils APE6 Octo Core big.LITTLE Processor

Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor is getting some competition with the announcement of Renesas AP6 processor at MWC2013. This SoC comes with the same big.LITTLE configuration (4x Cortex A15, 4x Cortex A7), but with a PowerVR SGX Series 6 ‘Rogue’ GPU, which, I assume, should outperform PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU used in Samsung SoC. R-Mobile APE6 could be the fastest mobile processor announced to date, and is currently showcased at Imagination Technologies booth at MWC 2013 running several OpenGL ES 3.0 applications, as well as a demonstration of Rightware’s Kanzi Studio, “a PC-based real-time WYSIWYG editor for designers and embedded engineers to create and customize embedded 3D user interface”. There’s very little information about the processor, so that’s basically all I have for now. But before I conclude, I’ll just drop a performance comparison chart between different PowerVR SGX series (source), since it’s the first mobile processor that I know of […]

Renesas Mobile Introduces MP6530 Quad Core ARM big.LITTLE Communication Processor

Renesas Mobile has recently announced the MP6530, an LTE communication SoC that targets mid- to high-end smartphones priced between $200 and $400. MP6530 features big.LITTLE technology with 2 ARM Cortex A15 clocked up to 2GHz, and 2 Cortex A7 cores up to 1Ghz, as well as an Imagination Technology PowerVR SGX544 GPU. Compared to Renesas Mobile MP5232 platform (Dual Cortex A9 + PowerVR GPU + Same TD-LTE Cat-4 Modem), GPU performance and memory performance have both been increased by 300 percent. MP6530 is manufactured using 28nm technology. Other key features of MP6530 SoC include: Dual-channel LPDDR3-standard interface with a bandwidth of 800-MB/s per channel. Multimedia capabilities Full HD primary display up to FHD@60Hz Simultaneous HDMI/MHL external display output (1080p30) Full HD WiFi Display Support for simultaneous 1080p30 video encoding and decoding Up to 20 MP digital SLR-like imaging support On-the-fly support with real-time face detection, stabilization, noise filtering to replace […]

Embedded Linux Conference 2013 Schedule

The Embedded Linux Conference (ELC 2013) will take place on February 20 – 22, 2013 at Park 55 Hotel in San Francisco, California. ELC consists of 3 days of presentations, tutorials and sessions. There will be over 50 sessions during those 3 days. I’ll highlight a few sessions that I find particularly interesting, and that did not get presented at ELCE 2012 (AFAICR). February 20 11:00 – Anatomy of the arm-soc git tree by Olof Johansson, Google We are now two years into the new maintainer model for ARM platforms, and we have settled down into a workflow that maintainers have adjusted well to. Still, when new platforms arrive, or when maintainer ship changes hands, there’s sometimes a bit of ramp-up in getting used to how we organize our git tree and how we prefer to see code submitted to fit that model. This presentation will give an overview of […]

LTSI 3.4 is Now Available for Download

Nearly 2 years ago, the Linux Foundation’s Consumer Electronics (CE) working group created the Long Term Support Initiative (LTSI) Linux kernel for consumer electronics devices in order to have a common stable platform released every 2 years, and share the kernel development work among competing companies including Hitachi, LG Electronics, NEC, Panasonic, Qualcomm Atheros, Renesas Electronics Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sony and Toshiba. Last week, the  CE working group has released LTSI 3.4 kernel, based on Linux 3.4.25 kernel release and including several backported features from newer kernels including:   The Contiguous Memory Allocator (CMA), which is extremely useful for embedded devices that have very limited hardware resources and will better handle the large memory requirements of multimedia applications. CMA originally was merged into the 3.4.0 kernel release, but its functionality was quite limited. Since then, the feature has been significantly improved in the kernel.org releases and those fixes have been added to […]

Droid Stick KVD-13 Another Low Cost Android mini-PC

Following the steps of the $74 Android 4.0 mini PC (MK802), a couple more ARM based mini PCs have shown up, including Shenzhen Kimdecent Technology Droid Stick KVD-13 powered by a Renesas processor based on Cortex A9 with a PowerVR SGX530 GPU (possibly Renesas NEC EV2 processor), featuring 512 MB RAM, 4GB Flash and running Android 2.3. The good thing with this mini PC is that the HDMI connector is of the right gender: male. No offense to HDMI female connectors ;), but for this type of device, it’s just neat to plug it directly into the TV/monitor HDMI connector. Here are the device specifications: CPU Renesas Cortex-A9 Dual Core Processor @ 1GHz with PowerVG SGX530 GPU System Memory 512MB DDR3 Storage 4GB NAND Flash microSD card Connectivity WiFi 802.11b/g/n USB Ports 1x USB 2.0 Host 1x mini USB (for power) Video Output 1x HDMI 1.4 (Up to 1080p) Video Codecs […]

Renesas Mobile Introduces Dual Core MP5232 SoC for Mid-range LTE Smartphones

Renesas has announced the availability of the MP5232, a dual core Cortex A9 @ 1.5 Ghz single-chip optimized to address the 150-300 USD LTE smartphones market. The MP5232 platform is designed to enable OEMs to accelerate the creation and delivery of high volume LTE/HSPA+ capable smartphones, tablets and mobile Internet devices the industry requires to deliver the full potential of LTE, says the company. Jean-Marie Rolland, CTO and Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Renesas Mobile Corporation explains: “We are seeing a number of US$600+ LTE super phone devices being launched in the market, but the industry needs a wider penetration of LTE devices for the business case for LTE to pay off.” The platform supports multi-camera (up to 20MPixel) and multi-display support, full HD 1080p multi-format video encoding/decoding, stereoscopic 3D (S3D) video and advanced graphics via a PowerVR SGX GPU to deliver a console-like gaming experiences and […]

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