Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC) has released a hardware/software reference design targeting digital multimedia appliances with sub-$100 BOMs (bills-of-material). The reference design, designated AVM49R, includes a mini-ITX board with a dedicated MPEG-1/2/4 codec chip alongside a 333MHz MIPS… RISC-based SoC (system-on-chip). The design runs Linux.

According to Toshiba, the kit supports simultaneous real-time MPEG-1, -2, and -4 encoding and decoding, making it suitable for IP STBs (set-top boxes), DVRs (digital video recorders), PVRs (personal video recorders), home gateways, and multimedia clients.

The RISC-based SoC

The AVM49R reference design is based on a Toshiba TMPR4938 SoC. The SoC is based on the 333MHz, 64-bit TX49/H3 CPU core, derived from the MIPS RISC architecture. The core includes 32KB each of instruction and data cache, an MMU (memory management unit), FPU (floating point unit), MAC (media access controller, and more (see chart below).

The TMPR4938 is based on a 333MHz TX49/H3 core

The TMPR4938XB SoC also integrates 2KB of SRAM, SDRAM and Flash controllers, a PCI controller, DMA controllers, and a dual-channel Ethernet MAC (sans PHY). The external bus connector can be used for NOR Flash, TAEC says.

The mini-ITX board

The AVM49R reference design is based on a mini-ITX (6.7 x 6.7-inch) board. Along with a TMPR4938 SoC (described above), the board includes:

• Vweb VW2010 MPEG-1/2/4 audio/video codec chip that can simultaneously encode and decode in real time, according to Toshiba
• Toshiba TC86C001F “GOKU” companion chip, which adds ATA66 and USB 1.1 interfaces
  • Design allows hard disk to be added for media storage
• PCI slot for wireless or graphics devices
• Standard S-video and composite outputs for standard definition TV
• ATX PC power supply connector and generates three DC voltages on-board
  • 1.5V for microprocessor and companion chip
  • 1.8V for codec chip
  • 2.5V for FPGA (field programmable gate array) and CPLD (complex programmable logic device

TAEC's AVM49R reference design is based on a mini-ITX board
(Click image for larger view)

The AVM49R comes with a Linux operating system based on MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 3.1. It also includes a kernel patch, a design specification, component data sheets, schematics, gerber database, CPLD/FPGA source code, and documentation, according to Toshiba.

“AVM49R [amalgamates] roughly 80 percent of the total solution, with the remainder left free for customers' customization and differentiation. In large quantities, its BOM is well under the desired $100.00 price point,” said Shardul Kazi, VP of TAEC's RISC microprocessor and multimedia unit.

Kazi adds that middleware and application ports are available for the design from TAEC partners.

Availability

The reference design is available now, priced at $10,000 per license.

Toshiba earlier partnered with embedded Linux distributor Lineo, subsequently acquired by Metrowerks, on a 64-bit TX49-based reference kit for home entertainment gateways that shipped in September of 2002.

 
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