In-car navigation processor gains 3D engine



location based services

Renesas is readying a high-end SoC (system-on-chip) for in-car navigation systems requiring accelerated 3D graphics. The SH7775 is based on a 600MHz SH-4a core, and integrates a GPS baseband from SiRF along with a 150MHz PowerVR MBX 3D graphics processor from Imagination Technologies, Renesas said.

Renesas describes the SH7775 as a "third-generation" car navigation SoC, after the earlier SH7774 and SH7770 parts. Compared to the SH7770, the SH7775 will offer 50 percent better floating point performance, and three times faster graphics, Renesas said.

As with the earlier SH777x parts, the new SH7775 is based on Renesas's SH-4A core, a 32-bit superscalar RISC core with integrated media processing instructions and a four-way, set-associative memory cache with 32KB each of instruction and data cache. Clocked at 600MHz in the SH7775, the core is said to deliver 1GIPS (giga instructions per second) and 4.2 GFLOPS (giga floating-point operations per second), making it the fastest chip ever based on the SuperH architecture.

The SH7775 uses the same 2D graphics engine as Renesas's earlier in-car nav chips, facilitating software forward compatibility, the company said. New in the SH7775 part, however, are 3D functions like triangle 3D drawing and texture mapping, useful for rendering buildings on maps, Renesas said. The SH7775's 3D capabilities are based on an PowerVR MBX 3D graphics engine from Imagination Technologies. Renesas will offer a "MAPGL" graphics API for the chip; and, Imagination also offers a PowerVR Insider SDK for content creators targeting its GPUs.

Other SH7775 on-chip peripherals and interfaces include:

• GPS baseband processing module utilizing IP licensed from SiRF
  
• ATAPI interface
  
• USB v2.0 host/function interface
  
• CAN in-vehicle LAN interface
  
• Remote control interface, timers, etc..
  
• Unified memory architecture allows memory sharing among peripherals
  
• 32-bit dedicated bus for connections to high-speed DDR2-SDRAM (Double-Data-Rate-2 Synchronous DRAM)
  
• 32-bit extension bus for connections to flash memory or SRAM
  

According to a Renesas spokesperson, "The SH7775 is capable of supporting major embedded operating systems such as QNX, Linux, Windows Automotive, ITRON and VxWorks." Since it is expected to support Windows Automotive, which is based on Windows CE 5.0, it presumably will support "standard" Windows CE.

Renesas said engineers can use its E10A-USB emulator for real-time on-chip debugging at the SH7775's full 600MHz operating frequency.

Availability

The SH7775 is expected to ship in July, priced at $70 in a 560-pin BGA package. An in-car navigation system reference platform said to include peripheral circuits for implementing a verification environment will also be offered.

Renesas also recently announced an SH-7785 SoC, also based on a 600MHz SH-4a core.

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