Renesas says it will sample in August a new SoC (system on chip) and development board that support Linux and target telematics and in-vehicle systems. The SH7397 “Euclid” SoC is based on a 300MHz, 32-bit SH-4A SuperH processor, and will double performance of the company's current SH7760 “Camelot” telematics processor, the company says.

The SH7397 is “upward code compatible” with Camelot, while delivering a claimed 540 MIPS (millions of instructions per second) and 2.1 GFLOPS (billion floating-point operations per second), according to Renesas. The SoC will be supported by a “Sequoia” hardware reference platform, which will provide external memory, debug ports, and various interfaces.

SH7397 “Euclid” SoC

The SH7397 is based on a 32-bit SH-4A core that features 32KB each of 4-way set-assiciative data and instruction cache, 16KB of on-chip RAM, and an external memory bus supporting DDR-SDRAM. The core also includes an FPU (floating point unit).

Euclid SH7397 SoC diagram
(Click to enlarge)

On-chip peripheral interfaces include:

• USB v1.1 host and USB v2.0 function controller
• LCD controller, supporting 64K colors on an 800×600-pixel LCD panel
• 4-channel 10-bit A/D converter
• real-time clock (RTC)
• 6-channel timer (TMU)
• Interrupt controller
• 6-channel direct memory access controller (DMAC)
• Serial sound interface and audio CODEC
• Memory card interfaces
  • MMC, SD, PCMCIA, and smart card
• CAN interface
• Ethernet controller
• 3-channel serial communication interface with FIFO (SCIF)
• 3-channel serial I/O with FIFO (SIOF)
• 2-channel I2C bus interface

Sequoia reference board

The Sequoia board will support a number of embedded OSes, including Linux, Windows CE, VxWorks, and QNX, Renesas says. It will support peripheral functions that include audio, display, CAN, USB, PCMCIA, MMC, smartcard, SD memory/IO card, and Ethernet. Additionally, Bluetooth and GPS modules will be optionally available.

Typical implementation diagram
(Click to enlarge)
According to Renesas, the Sequoia board will “leverage the expert technology resources” of COMET (community enabling telematics), a partner consortium led by Renesas.

Paul Sykes, marketing manager of Renesas's automitive business unit, stated, “Our new Euclid SoC is a technology enabler for compelling system capabilities that will boost consumer demand for OEM and aftermarket in-vehicle information, safety, and entertainment equipment. Besides its optimum processing performance, the SH7397 device provides a USB interface that enables connections to consumer devices such as mobile phones, portable music players, and similar types of portable devices.”

Availability

The SH7397 will sample in August. It will ship in a lead-free, 21 x 21mm, 449-pin BGA package, priced at $37, Renesas says.

Renesas was established in 2003 as a joint venture between Hitachi and Mitsubishi. It claims to be the world's top microcontroller vendor, with revenues of 906B Yen (about $8.13B) in 2005. It operates in 20 countries, and has 26,200 employees worldwide, it says.

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