OREANDA-NEWS. October 16, 2012. Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited today announced the development of Interface Bridge SoC "MB86E631," which brings together a dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 processor and a host of different interfaces, all on a single chip. Sample quantities of the new product will begin shipping in late December 2012.

MB86E631 incorporates a total of 10 different interfaces, including USB, Serial ATA, PCI Express, Ethernet MAC, and TS. As a result, the new product is an LSI featuring performance and functionality that has been optimized for CPUs for transcoder LSI control, as well as for products requiring control of a wide variety of interfaces.

The spread of smartphones and tablets has led to the availability of Wi-Fi TV tuner products that enable TV to be viewed on customer mobile devices. Such products are equipped with transcoder LSIs for performing video format and resolution conversion, as well as Wi-Fi modules and other technologies. A number of challenges are involved in selecting a CPU for controlling these technologies.

Multi-decoder LSIs used in video recording devices and communications processors for networking products are too powerful, whereas the performance of low-cost CPUs, such as microcontrollers, is insufficient.

At the same time, customers who manufacture video recording devices, TVs with built-in recording capabilities, and other products have expressed the need for a CPU with the ability to control a variety of interfaces capable of connecting to a wide range of different equipment.

Fujitsu Semiconductor developed Interface Bridge SoC "MB86E631" as an LSI that has been optimized to meet this need for both performance and functionality.

Featuring a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor (~500MHz operations) as its CPU core, MB86E631 brings together a total of 10 different interfaces—including USB2.0/3.0, Serial ATA, PCI Express, Ethernet MAC and TS—all on a single chip. Not only is the product optimal for use together with a transcoder LSI in Wi-Fi TV tuner applications SoC, but it can also be employed as a CPU for interface control in multi-tuner devices and other applications in which control of multiple interfaces is required. In addition, the new chip will lead to the development of a new market that extends beyond video delivery and recording devices to include products that require performance greater than that of microcontrollers and support for multiple interfaces.

Going forward, Fujitsu Semiconductor will continue to roll out new technologies and products, particularly in the area of video processing LSIs, while also proposing solutions for a wide range of product applications.