Freescale Expands i.MX51 Product Family, Includes New Processors

Freescale has reportedly expanded its i.MX51 product family to include new processors, especially designed to help customers differentiate and win in automotive, industrial and consumer markets.

 

The new devices are the i.MX514 and i.MX516 processors for automotive applications and the i.MX512 and i.MX513 processors for industrial and consumer applications. In order to complement the i.MX51 processors, the company has introduced a power management device, dubbed the MC13892. In addition, the company said that the previously announced i.MX515 processor is shipping in volume quantities to smart book manufacturers, and it’s now also available for industrial and additional consumer applications.

 

Bernd Lienhard, vice president and general manager of multimedia applications division at Freescale, said that the newest members of the celebrated i.MX51 family deliver “compelling blends of features and functionality” to meet the stringent requirements of the automotive, industrial and consumer markets.

 

With the introduction of these new devices, the company’s long track record of enabling and optimizing the power and performance advantages of ARM (News - Alert) technology continues, he said.

 

Based on Freescale’s optimized implementation of the ARM Cortex-A8 core, these new devices in the i.MX51 family are pin-compatible and. Integrating five processing engines, the products deliver a variety of video, graphics and multimedia feature combinations to meet specific market requirements, said company officials. The i.MX51 family products feature a vast array of connectivity options, and support multiple memory types, including DDR2.

 

Company officials said that the new i.MX512 and i.MX513 devices are designed to meet critical industrial market requirements like intuitive user interfaces, sophisticated graphics processing and extensive connectivity options.

 

These two devices deliver 600 MHz performance at industrial temperature ranges. The i.MX513 also come with hardware video encode/decode functionality. Company officials said that these processors are included in Freescale’s product longevity program, with assured supply for a minimum of 10 years.

 

Freescale’s i.MX512 and i.MX513 processors can benefit printers, factory automation equipment, medical devices, digital signage, home appliances and human-machine interface technology. Additionally, the devices are also available in consumer versions, and are ideal for the eBook, IP camera and V2IP media phone markets. The core performance is enhanced to 800MHz in the consumer versions.

 

Company officials said that the i.MX514 and i.MX516 processors are planned for AEC-Q100 qualification and designed for a variety of in-dash and after-market automotive applications. These devices 600 MHz performance at automotive temperature ranges, and are ideal for display-based instrument clusters, navigation, telematics and infotainment platforms, as well as other automotive applications.

 

The devices feature advanced graphics capabilities. The i.MX516 also features a video encode/decode hardware engine to provide rich multimedia experiences for drivers and passengers.

 

The i.MX51 family is supported by a “deep ecosystem” of enablement solutions from Freescale and third-party partners, said company officials, In addition to development technologies available from Freescale, the i.MX51 family is also distinguished by module makers, tools, middleware and application support.

 

The company is now sampling the consumer, industrial and automotive versions of the i.MX51 family. Currently, the full qualified consumer i.MX51 products are shipping in production, and the industrial and automotive qualifications planned for 1Q 2010.