Renesas Electronics Launches Enhanced SoCs

Renesas Electronics Corporation, a provider of advanced semiconductor solutions such as microcontrollers, ‘System on Chip’ (SoC) solutions and a wide range of analog and power devices, introduced three new audio decoder SoCs.

The new devices, named µPD63530, µPD63910 and µPD63911, feature an integrated Universal Serial Bus or ‘USB’ host controller. The µPD63530 device is available in a 48-pin low-profile quad flat-pack or ‘LQFP’ package. It is 88 percent smaller than existing package offerings and can be deployed in automotive and consumer products.

In integration with the µPD63910 SoC, the µPD63530 can be used for convenient software upgrade right through external flash memory. It helps the designers in storing modified versions of the system firmware in external memory. While the system is being booted, these updates are uploaded to the SoCs so that future enhancement of system functions can be seamlessly incorporated.

All the three new offerings by Renesas feature support to USB 2.0 to enable high data speed u to 12Mbps. The devices offer a combination of all the functions needed in an audio system to decode music in three popular formats, which are MP3, Windows Media Audio (WMA) and AAC. Additionally, leveraging their inherent system features, the devices are helpful in considerably reducing the amount of time needed to develop audio systems that play audio data stored on USB memory devices or secure digital (SD) cards. It has been made possible through standard integrated software that comprises of MP3, WMA and AAC decoding functions, a WAV (News - Alert) file playback function, file system control and system control functions as well.

The company plans to begin sampling all of its three new SoCs, including µPD63530, µPD63910 and µPD63911 during the current month. Initially, the µPD63530 SoC will be priced at $5, while the µPD63910 and µPD63911 SoCs will be made available at a price of $10 each. The company aims at beginning the mass production of these SoCs by August 2011, and expects to manufacture a total volume of 300,000 units per month by the year 2012.

In June 2010, Renesas Electronics Corporation joined the Symbian (News - Alert) Foundation, bringing its advanced mobile chipset technologies and expertise to the Symbian ecosystem. With the help of its chipsets that support the Symbian platform, Renesas aimed at enabling Original Equipment Manufacturers or ‘OEMs’ worldwide to create Symbian compliant devices that fully meet the needs of network operators, accelerating the adoption of Symbian around the world.