Renesas says it is now shipping a new system-on-chip (SoC) for car navigation systems and PNDs (personal navigation devices). The SH-MobileR2 SH7723 incorporates a 400MHz SH-4A CPU core, 256KB secondary cache, H.264 codec, 2D graphics accelerator, USB 2.0 support, plus SD and ATAPI controllers, says Renesas.

(Click here for a larger view of the SH-MobileR2)

The SH7723 is a follow-on to the previously released SH7722, which is one of the company's many products using the SH-4A core. But where the 266MHz SH7722 was already said to have enhanced the SH-Mobile product line's multimedia performance, the 400MHz SH7723 takes this a step further.

Processing performance when operating at 400MHz is 720MIPS (million instructions per second), and the FPU achieves a performance of 2.8GFLOPS (giga floating-point operations per second), says Renesas. In addition, the 64KB of primary cache memory is now supplemented by a new 256KB secondary cache memory (mixed instructions and data), contributing to faster software execution.

The SH7723 also now incorporates the company's so-caled VPU5F (Video Processing Unit 5F), a high-performance hardware accelerator that supports the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard. It can perform VGA-resolution encoding and decoding at a rate of 30 frames per second, Renesas says. In addition to supporting the Japanese terrestrial digital broadcasting format ISDB-T, the SH7723 supports the European DVB and South Korean DMB formats.

Compared to the SH7722, the SH7723 is also said to have an improved 2D graphics accelerator, for higher-speed map rendering and sharper video pictures. Added peripheral functions include USB 2.0 host/client support (high-speed), an ATAPI controller, and an SDHC-compatible host controller.

The SH7723 runs Linux or Windows CE, and a “wide variety” of middleware is available, including video middleware supporting H.264, MPEG-4, and WMV, and audio middleware supporting aacPlus (advanced audio coding plus).

Additional touted features include:

• Video I/O (direct-connection interface for five megapixel camera module)
  
• Video image processing functions (color conversion, image enlargement/reduction, filter processing)
  
• LCD control with support for 24-bit TFT color LCD panel
  
• DMAC x 12 channels
  
• Sound interface unit x 2 channels
  
• 32-bit timer unit x 6 channels
  
• 32-bit compare-match timer x 1 channel
  
• 16-bit timer pulse unit x 4 channels
  
• Realtime clock x 1 channel
  
• Watchdog timer x 1 channel
  
• I2C bus interface x 1 channel
  
• Key scan interface
  
• Asynchronous/clock synchronous serial interface x 6 channels
  
• IrDA interface (v1.2a support)
  
• NAND flash memory interface
  
• A/D converter x 4 channels
  
• On-chip debug function

Availability

The SH-7723 is available now in a 21mm-square 449-pin BGA package. It costs $26 in 10,000-unit lots, for a part with -20 to 70 deg. C operating range, or $30 for a part with a -40 to 85 deg. C operating range.

 
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