Broadcom Announces New SoC Solution for PND Manufacturers

Broadcom, the fabless semiconductor company, has designed a new system on a chip (SoC) solution specifically for Personal Navigation Device (PND) manufacturers.

According to the company, the new SoC is called “PND-on-a-chip” (BCM4760) -- which embeds a global positioning system (GPS) base band, radio frequency (RF) circuitry and low noise amplifier (LNA) as well as an ARM11 processor on an OpenGL ES 1.1/OpenVG 1.0-compliant graphics processor.

The PND-on-a-chip incorporates the functionalities of many costly external components to offer a graphical user experience of life-like maps and engaging navigational information for next generation PND. Conventional systems have limitations such as lags and blocky renderings.

The chip is built on Broadcom’s (News - Alert) 65 nm process and also integrates an audio codec, touch screen controller and USB 2.0 controller with high speed transceiver to offer top notch graphical navigation.

PND manufacturers can take advantage of the PND-on-a-chip’s advanced hardware-based graphics capability to produce detailed 3D maps and intuitive graphical user interface. Customers are also provided with easy usability and enhanced user experience.

Scott Pomerantz, vice president and general manager of Broadcom's GPS line of business stated that their proven expertise in integrating complex RF, analog and digital circuits at extremely small geometries has enabled Broadcom to deliver this industry-first for the PND market. By delivering an applications processor that integrates both the GPS baseband and radio on a single die, without any compromises in performance, Broadcom is helping drive high-end graphics performance to new classes of PND devices.

 

Broadcom says that the BCM4760 SoC enables system manufacturers to create PNDs at various price points and features. The SoC can be used to offer a USB 2.0 OTG high-speed controller with integrated transceiver, a 4- or 5-wire touch controller, and audio mixer with a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for the low end market. The solution helps to simplify PCB design and keep the development costs to a minimum.

 

For the mid-end market the BCM4760 provides ample processing power for the rapid display of 3D city maps and 3D landmarks. The high quality graphical navigation is offered by combining the resources of the 3-processor architecture, multiple high-speed interfaces, and Broadcom's connectivity technologies, such as Bluetooth and WLAN chipsets with the BCM4760 platform.

 

For the high-level market, the BCM4760 supports a direct connection to Broadcom's VideoCore family of mobile multimedia co-processors. Adding the VideoCore III co-processor for example, enables high definition (HD) video playback and recording, graphics acceleration, image signal processing (ISP), and more.

 

Broadcom’s third generation Blu-ray chipset solution has been selected by Samsung (News - Alert) Electronics for its 2009 lineup of Blu-ray Disc players and home theater systems. And Broadcom’s Bluetooth combo chip technology and associated BTE software have been qualified as compliant with the ratified Bluetooth v3.0 + HS (high speed) specification.