Multimedia Processor For Handhelds Punches The Graphics, Video Gas Pedal

April 12, 2004

Adding enhanced multimedia capabilities to mobile phones and other handheld devices, the second-generation OMAP processor from Texas Instruments delivers high-quality personal entertainment. The OMAP2410 and 2420 will enable interactive...

Dave Bursky

Adding enhanced multimedia capabilities to mobile phones and other handheld devices, the second-generation OMAP processor from Texas Instruments delivers high-quality personal entertainment.

The OMAP2410 and 2420 will enable interactive 3D gaming, 6-Mpixel cameras, digital camcorders, DVD-quality video, TV, and more. On-chip graphics and video engines boost video performance by four times and graphics operations by up to 40 times versus the first-generation OMAP.

The 2410 and 2420 both include an AMR1136JS-F RISC processor core and a TMS320C55x DSP core, a 2D/3D graphics accelerator that delivers up to 2 million polygons/s, an integrated camera interface, a sophisticated DMA controller, and a host of other features. The OMAP2420's programmable imaging and video accelerator supports 4-Mpixel still-image capture and full-motion video encode and decode in CIF to VGA resolution. The 2420 also can output images to an external TV.

To ensure that systems deliver maximum battery life, the OMAP2 processors include extensive power-management capabilities. To further optimize battery lifetime, Texas Instruments also created the TML92230 energy-management companion chip. This device handles dynamic voltage management as well as low-battery and thermal-shutdown protection. It also can replace many of the discrete power-management components, reducing cost and board area.

The processors are supported by a software development platform and libraries of algorithms for multimedia building blocks, including MPEG4, MP3, H.263, H.264, WMV, OpenGL, ES, and Direct-X. Samples of the OMAP2 processors will be available later this quarter.

Texas Instrumentswww.ti.com/omap2

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About the Author

Dave Bursky | Technologist

Dave Bursky, the founder of New Ideas in Communications, a publication website featuring the blog column Chipnastics – the Art and Science of Chip Design. He is also president of PRN Engineering, a technical writing and market consulting company. Prior to these organizations, he spent about a dozen years as a contributing editor to Chip Design magazine. Concurrent with Chip Design, he was also the technical editorial manager at Maxim Integrated Products, and prior to Maxim, Dave spent over 35 years working as an engineer for the U.S. Army Electronics Command and an editor with Electronic Design Magazine.