SAN JOSE, Calif. — LinkUp Systems Corporation today announced its L7205 system-on-chip solution. The highly integrated device, which is aimed at the fast-growing Internet and information appliance market, includes an ARM720T processor plus two UARTs, USB port, IrDA interface, codec, DSP, and dual LCD display controllers. The device is supported under embedded Linux, as well as several other popular embedded operating systems.

Like the other members of the LinkUp Systems L7200 family, the L7205 is designed to provide a complete processor plus peripherals solution on a single chip. The L7205 device includes a 32-bit ARM720T processor with 8K cache, a write buffer, memory management unit, and many highly integrated system peripherals.

The L7205 includes an integrated 16-bit Piccolo DSP coprocessor with its own instruction cache. The dual processors of the L7205 give system designers the flexibility to run many operating systems and applications, and can provide functionality such as JPEG compression, MP3 decoding with stereo playback and 56K modem connectivity.

The power conservation features of the L7205 chip make it particularly well-suited for portable devices. The L7205 provides 5 levels of power management control including Run Mode (full power), Idle mode, Snooze Mode, Standby and Deep Sleep.

The single-chip L7205 includes two display subsystems capable of controlling a 640 x 480 gray scale LCD, or a 640 x 480 dual-scan or TFT color LCD. The L7205 memory subsystem offers both dynamic memory control for 16-bit wide SDRAM memory and static memory control for 16 or 32-bit SRAM, Flash, ROM and external input/output. The L7205 also directly connects to LinkUp Systems' L1121 PC Card/CompactFlash controller.

Interfaces for MultiMedia Card flash-based storage and SmartCard access are included, as is an AC Link audio codec interface combining stereo audio and modem codecs. An 8-channel DMA controller supports the transfer between system memory and the rich set of on-chip peripheral controllers. Communication controllers include two UARTs, slow/medium/fast IrDA support, master/slave synchronous serial port (SSP) and SPI.

Additional connectivity is provided by USB function and host interfaces. The serial communications subsystem includes two DMA-backed 920Kbps UARTs and is Bluetooth-ready for wireless communications.

A 32-bit real time clock and two 16-bit timer/counters provide system control for the L7205. The system includes 52 general purpose input/outputs (GPIOs).

Pricing and availability

The L7205 device is sampling now, with mass production scheduled for August, 2000. The device will be priced at under $25 per unit in quantities of 10,000.

The L7205 is available with a development board, the L7205SDB Development System, which includes device drivers, a software framework, sample code, documentation, and build and development tools. The L7205SDB is $5,000.

About LinkUp Systems

Privately held, LinkUp Systems Corp. provides ARM-based system-on-silicon products for the Internet appliance and consumer electronics markets. The company's products are optimized for low-power portable applications such as Pocket PCs, smartphones and wireless Internet terminals, screenphones and mobile multimedia embedded markets. LinkUp also provides support chips for Intel's StrongARM SA-1100 integrated processor.

 
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