Freescale’s i.MX processor family
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The i.MX family of ARM based Freescale processors is designed for use in smartphones, portable media players, navigation devices and many other consumer, industrial and health care embedded applications. Based on ARM® core technology, the i.MX family is engineered with application of Smart Speed™ technology to ensure high performance with low power consumption.
The i.MX family supports such popular platforms as Microsoft Windows® CE and Mobile, Linux® OS, QNX Netrino® and a range of other less popular RTOSes.
The i.MX family includes processors built on the basis of different versions of ARM® core: ARM9, ARM11 and ARM Cortex A8.
Freescale i.MX31 Family
i.MX31 multimedia microcontrollers built on the basis of ARM1136JF-S™ core with embedded vector floating point (VFP) coprocessor and L2 cache are designed for processing MPEG VGA video and graphics with frequency 30 frames per second and simultaneous execution of other tasks. These characteristics allowed i.MX31 to become the core of many popular portable multimedia devices. The support of main video standards including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVI, DivX, H.263 and H.264 at a quite low price (22,5$ for a batch of 100 items) allows it to stay popular and be in demand among multimedia controllers.
Characteristics:
General
- ARM1136JF-S core
- 128 KB L2 cache
- Jazelle® Java accelerator
- Vector Floating Point processor (VFP)
- Smart Speed™ technology
Multimedia
- VGA MPEG-4 HW encoding
- Graphics acceleration (i.MX31 only)
- Image processing unit (IPU)
- CMOS/CCD sensor interface
- Resize, color space conversion
- Filtering, blending
- Display/TV controller
External Memory Interface (EMI)
- SDRAM 16/32-bit, 133 MHz
- Mobile DDR 16/32-bit, 266 MHz
- NAND flash 8/16-bit
- PSRAM
Advanced Power Management
- Automatic dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS)
- Dynamic process and temperature compensation (DPTC)
Interfaces
- USB-OTG HS, 2 Hosts
- 2 MMC/SD, 2 Memory Stick ProTM
- PCMCIA/CF
- ATA-6 (HDD) interface
- Audio MUX
- IrDA, fast IrDA, keypad
- SPI x 2, SSI/I2S x 2, UART x 5
Performance
- Core: 400-532 MHz
- System bus: 133 MHz
- From 0° to 70°C for i.MX31 and i.MX31L
- From -40° to +85°C for i.MX31C and i.MX31LC
Production Technology
- 457 MAPBGA 0.5 mm pitch or 473 MAPBGA 0.8 mm pitch
- 90 nm CMOS
Image Processing Unit
i.MX31 controller contains a 3-D Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) that provides high-speed video processing - up to 100 Mpic/sec. GPU is built upon ARM MBX R-S™ graphics accelerator. This allows support of OpenGL® ES and Java Mobile 3D with full-screen anti-aliasing.
L210 Level 2 Cache Controller
L2 cache controller with ARML210™ core and 128 KB of memory together with the main ARM1136JF-S core ensures performance increase from 25% up to 75% and much longer battery life. The cache controller allows elimination of difficulties connected with bandwidth restrictions when working with external memory. Freescale was the first partner of ARM who applied and received license for this technology.
Smart Speed Technology
Smart Speed technology ensures concurrency of instructions by means of synchronous execution of up to five transactions. This ensures bandwidth comparable with such of 3Hz systems and allows displaying streaming video and hold video conferences with a quality previously impossible for a controller with such frequency.
Focuses of Application
- Mobile phones and smartphones;
- Portable media players and mobile game platforms;
- Personal digital assistants;
- Portable DVD players;
- Digital cameras.
Freescale i.MX51 Family
i.MX515 is a high-performance multimedia processor built on the basis of ARM Cortex™-A8 core and optimized for use in low power consumption systems with possibility of working with graphics and video image. Built-in support of HD 720p high-quality video format, together with OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1 hardware accelerators make this processor a very attractive for use as a central processor in modern netbooks.
Characteristics:
General
- 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU
- 32 KB instruction and data caches
- Unified 256 KB L2 cache
- NEON SIMD media accelerator
- Vector floating point co-processor
Multimedia
- OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1 hardware accelerators
- Multi-format HD 720p video decoder and D1 video encoder
- 24-bit primary display support up to WXGA
- 18-bit secondary display support
- Analog HD720p component TV output
- High-quality hardware video de-interlacing
- Image and video resize, inversion and rotation hardware
- Alpha blending and color space conversion
- Video/graphics combining: four planes plus hardware cursor
- Display quality enhancement: color correction, gamut mapping, gamma correction
External Memory Interfaces
- mDDR and DDR2 SDRAM, 16/32-bit, 200 MHz
- SLC/MLC NAND flash, 8/16-bit
Advanced Power Management
- Composite independent power domain
- Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling
- Dynamic process and temperature compensation
Interfaces
- HS USB OTG with PHY
- Three additional HS USB controllers
- Serial interfaces including DIO, SPI, I2C and UART
- Audio interfaces I2S and S/PDIF
- 10/100 Ethernet controller
- P-ATA
Production Technology
- MAPBGA 13 mm x 13 mm, 0.5 mm pitch package
- MAPBGA 19 mm x 19 mm, 0.8 mm pitch package
- -20ºC - +85ºC temperature range
- Automatic temperature measurement
Application Processor for Use in Netbooks
i.MX515 processor operating at 1GHz speed increases possibilities of modern netbooks and allows utilization of all possibilities of internet. Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling allows switching the processor to 200 MHz speed and as a result saving energy when running undemanding applications.
Graphics Accelerator
Modern mobile multimedia and game devices highly demand 3-D graphics. i.MX515 processor due to improved (in comparison with i.MX31) integrated 3-D image processing unit meets these requirements. The use of i.MX515 allows achieving high speed of image processing up to 664 Mpix/sec and the use of embedded 2-D image processing unit accelerates the work of Adobe® Flash® and window interface of the operating system.
Focuses of Application
- Low-cost netbooks
- Mobile game platforms.
Freescale i.MX Family Comparison Table
|
i.MX31L |
i.MX31 |
i.MX515 |
| Core |
ARM1136JF-S™ |
ARM Cortex™-A8 |
| Maximal frequency |
532MHz
|
1GHz |
| Efforts |
16KB
|
92KB |
Interfaces
|
| ATA-6 |
Yes |
| 1-Wire |
Yes |
| CAN |
No |
| Ethernet 10/100 |
No
|
Yes |
| Fast-IRDA (FIRI) |
Yes |
| I2C |
3 |
| Memory stick pro |
Yes |
| PCMCIA |
Yes |
No |
| SD/SDIO/MMC |
2 |
4 |
| SPI |
2 |
3 |
| UART |
5 |
3 |
| USB Controller |
|
|
| USB PHY |
No |
1 |
| Audio |
| SSI / I2S |
2 |
3 |
| SPDIF Transceiver/Transmitter |
No |
Yes |
| LCD Controller |
| Number of supported displays |
1
|
2 |
| LCD resolution |
SVGA |
XGA |
| Built-in Touchscreen |
No |
Yes |
| Graphics |
| Open GL ES 1.1 3D |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Open GL ES 2.0 3D |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Open VG 1.1 |
No |
No |
Yes |
Supported Memory Interfaces
|
| DDR1 |
No |
Yes |
| DDR2 |
No |
Yes |
| Mobile DDR |
Yes |
| NAND-FLASH |
Yes |
| NOR-FLASH |
Yes |
| PSRAM |
Yes |
| SDRAM |
Yes |
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