Optimized for computationally intensive industrial and consumer applications, Freescale’s pin-compatible i.MX353 and i.MX357 applications processors combine the ARM1136JF-S™ core with an OpenVG graphics engine, cost-effective DDR2 memory support and an array of connectivity interfaces. The i.MX353 processor targets cost-sensitive display-based systems, while the i.MX357 integrates an OpenVG 1.1-compliant graphics processing unit to address applications requiring an advanced user interface with higher levels of graphics, such as font rendering.
Freescale’s i.MX353 and i.MX357 processors are well suited for a wide range of industrial applications, such as factory automation, building control and HVAC systems that incorporate sophisticated human machine interfaces (HMI). The devices also provide the optimal multimedia capabilities needed for personal navigation devices (PNDs), e-books and other portable consumer electronics applications requiring graphical user displays.
“As the graphics content of industrial and consumer applications grows increasingly complex and compute-intensive, embedded developers are choosing cost-effective processing solutions that deliver exceptional multimedia capabilities,” said Paul Marino, general manager of Freescale’s Multimedia Applications Division. “Freescale’s latest i.MX35 processors offer the graphics acceleration and connectivity options that developers need to take their system designs to the next level of performance, within ever tighter price and power budgets.”
Running at up to 532 MHz, the i.MX35 processors’ advanced ARM1136 core implementation features a vector floating point co-processor, a multi-level cache system and a RISC-based DMA controller to provide a high level of performance without sacrificing power consumption.
An array of memory and connectivity options
Freescale’s i.MX353 and i.MX357 multimedia applications processors support a variety of external memories, such as SDRAM, Mobile DDR and DDR2, SLC and MLC NAND flash, NOR flash and SRAM. Support for cost-effective memory options such as DDR2 and multi-level cell NAND helps reduce system costs and give developers greater design flexibility.
These two additions to the i.MX35 processor family are packed with industry-standard connectivity options, such as controller area network (CAN) and Fast Ethernet interfaces, which support high-bandwidth data transfers for industrial applications. The processors also feature two USB ports with integrated PHYs, two MMC/SD/SDIO ports and a CE-ATA/SDIO port for external wireless modules.
Advanced multimedia capabilities
The i.MX353 and i.MX357 processors contain an integrated image processing unit (IPU) with a dedicated camera interface and an LCD controller optimized to support 24-bit WVGA displays. The IPU handles advanced image processing and display management tasks, such as deblocking, deringing, color space conversion, independent horizontal and vertical resizing, and blending of graphics and video planes. The IPU is equipped with powerful control and synchronization capabilities to perform tasks with minimal to no involvement of the ARM11 CPU.
An available OpenVG 1.1 hardware accelerator is designed to deliver smooth textural visuals required in today’s industrial and consumer interfaces that are rich in vector and raster graphics. The OpenVG core is capable of native acceleration of Adobe® Flash, with the following benefits:
- An enhanced Web browsing experience with Adobe® Flash animation
- Automatic conversion of Adobe animations to C-code running on the i.MX35 processor, without requiring hand-coding, resulting in fast time to market.
Product development support
The i.MX35 multimedia applications processors are backed by comprehensive development boards and software solutions from numerous global ecosystem partners. This ecosystem provides embedded developers with many options for selecting the right kits for their development needs. Board support packages for Linux and Windows® Embedded CE operating systems, as well as RTOS options, are available for the i.MX35 processors.
Availability and pricing
Samples of Freescale’s i.MX353 and i.MX357 processors are available today through authorized distributors, with full production planned to begin in Q2 2009. Suggested resale pricing in 10,000-unit quantities begins at $11.98 (USD).
An i.MX35 product development kit (PDK) designed by Freescale is planned to be available in May as an additional development option. The PDK will be available at a suggested resale price of $1,500 (USD).
To learn more about the i.MX353 and i.MX357 processors, visit www.freescale.com/files/pr/imx.html.
About Freescale's i.MX multimedia applications processors
Millions of i.MX multimedia applications processors are powering consumer, industrial, automotive, medical and general embedded devices. With on-chip media accelerators, multiple connectivity interfaces and package options, the i.MX family is suitable for a broad spectrum of multimedia-oriented applications. Freescale’s i.MX technology includes leading power management, security management, digital rights management and image processing technology, a formidable combination of features OEMs desire to drive high-performance video, audio and 3D gaming content on mobile devices. For more information, visit www.freescale.com/files/pr/imx.html.
About the Freescale Technology Forum
Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) events around the world bring the Freescale ecosystem together under one roof to create a unique environment of collaboration and innovation. The Forum has been enthusiastically received by the global developer community, drawing more than 28,000 attendees worldwide since its 2005 inception. For the latest information, please visit: www.freescale.com/FTF.
About Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. The privately held company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations around the world. www.freescale.com.
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Freescale and the Freescale logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. ARM is the registered trademark of ARM Limited. RM1136JF-S is the trademark of ARM Limited. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. © Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. 2009.
Supporting comments from Freescale partners
ARM
"The new Freescale i.MX35 family of multimedia application processors offers an exciting solution for the industrial and consumer markets, both of which are increasingly dominated by rich and complex applications requiring advanced processing capabilities," said Vincent Korstanje, director of technical marketing, ARM System Design Division. "We are delighted to enable optimized application performance with ARM® RealView® Development Suite support for the i.MX35 family at its introduction.”
BSQUARE
“Freescale’s i.MX35 multimedia application processors bring together power and performance with broad market appeal for devices requiring rich media content,” said Carey Butler, vice president of engineering services at BSQUARE Corporation. “The processors deliver the excellent price and performance benefits that our portable media, personal navigation and automotive infotainment customers are requesting.”
CodeSourcery
"CodeSourcery is proud that Sourcery G++™ has been chosen as a tool suite recommended by Freescale for GNU/Linux development on the i.MX35 platform," said Mark Mitchell, chief sourcerer of CodeSourcery. "Freescale's exciting new i.MX353 and i.MX357 processors combined with CodeSourcery's complete GNU-based C/C++ development environment offer embedded developers a cost-effective solution for a variety of multimedia applications."
Cogent Computer Systems, Inc.
“We are pleased to announce support for Freescale’s i.MX35 platform,” said Michael Kelly, vice-president of engineering at Cogent. “The CSB732 System On a Module (SOM) allows customers to develop, design and deploy i.MX35 processor-based products quickly with low risk and low cost. The i.MX35 platform represents a breakthrough in features, performance and power consumption. This level of capability reflects the continued leadership of Freescale in the ARM embedded marketplace.” Cogent will demonstrate the CSB732, i.MX35 SOM in Freescale's booth #9-335 at Embedded World.
Cybercom
"We are proud to be a part of the i.MX353 and i.MX357 applications processors launch for the consumer and industrial markets,” said Peter Malmberg, director of embedded wireless systems at Cybercom. “As a solution provider and systems integrator, we have designed infotainment solutions based on the i.MX35 family for our customers. We have been working with Freescale, building demonstration solutions and showing that our pre-integrated Cybercom blueGO, our Bluetooth middleware, enables Freescale customers to launch Bluetooth products with a superior user experience and device interoperability in a very short time."
EBV Elektronik
“The fast-growing customer base for high-end embedded processing capabilities requires a wide range of connectivity interfaces and an advanced graphics engine,” said Rudy Van Parijs, vice-president of technical development at EBV Elektronik. “The i.MX353 and i.MX357 multimedia applications processors are great additions to the i.MX35 family, backed by Freescale's extensive technology experience, automotive grade reliability and commitment to the industrial market.” The EBV technical team will demonstrate the platform development kit (PDK) and high performance of the i.MX35 processors at the EBV booth #9-163 at Embedded World.
Express Logic
"Express Logic is pleased to offer our ThreadX® RTOS, NetX™ TCP/IP stack, and BenchX® Eclipse-based IDE in support of Freescale's new i.MX353 and i.MX357 multimedia applications processors," said William E. Lamie, president of Express Logic, Inc. Express Logic will demonstrate these products at its booth #11-124 at Embedded World.
Future Electronics
“The i.MX35 family's integration, combined with the global support of Future Electronics' Advanced Engineering Group, enables our customers to design cost-effective solutions that marry extensive industrial connectivity, robust video and graphics, and high-performance embedded processing, resulting in the continued value, performance and reliability expected from Freescale,” said Brian Hofen, vice president, global Freescale Technology, Future Electronics. For more information, visit www.FutureElectronics.com/Freescale/iMX35.
Green Hills Software
“Green Hills is pleased to be an active i.MX353/357 ecosystem partner and a proven software supplier to today’s i.MX customers,” said Robert Redfield, director of business development at Green Hills Software. “We see an uptick in industrial, medical, consumer and automotive customers combining more multimedia and human interface software with embedded connectivity. Combining this functionality presents software reliability and security challenges. Customers address these challenges with our royalty-free INTEGRITY RTOS for its unmatched security and reliability pedigree, network communication protocols and the MULTI integrated development tools, which unlock the ARM11 core’s optimizations and decrease the cost and time of their software development lifecycle.”
IAR Systems
“We are excited about the expansion of the i.MX35 family,” said Anders Flodin, director of business development, IAR Systems. “IAR Systems is today a leading microcontroller tool vendor for the industrial and consumer markets, and we strongly believe that the powerful combination of high performance, connectivity and graphics processing in the i.MX35 family will generate a lot of interest in the market.”
ICytecture
"We believe the launch of the i.MX35 will offer exceptional possibilities to our industrial and medical customers starting up their HMI projects,” said Boris Bobrov, CEO of ICytecture. "Our i.MX35 Starter Board offers a flexible development and reference platform. By integrating on the board our ready-to-ship form-factor industrial-grade CPU module for the i.MX35 family, we expect to help Freescale's customers accelerate their product launch. The i.MX35 Starter Board is available online to order immediately from ICytecture and Freescale.”
Loquendo
“Loquendo is proud to announce its optimized speech recognition and text-to-speech engines for Freescale’s i.MX353 and i.MX357 processors,” said Silvio Nasi, sales director for embedded technologies at Loquendo. “We believe that the innovative and powerful i.MX353 and i.MX357 processors will bring enormous benefits to the market by providing high-performance capabilities to computationally intensive industrial and consumer multimedia automotive applications, where advanced, high-quality, human-machine interfaces really make the difference. We also believe that this architecture will get the very best out of Loquendo’s high-quality embedded speech technologies.”
Macraigor Systems
“Macraigor Systems is proud to collaborate with Freescale by fully supporting the new additions to the i.MX35 processor family,” said Craig Haller, managing partner at Macraigor Systems. “Our free Eclipse and GNU toolsets, as well as other debuggers and flash programmer, are fully compatible with the i.MX353 and i.MX357 processors and the entire i.MX35 family. As Freescale continues to make strides into the multimedia application area, our support will be there too.”
Microcross
“We have supported the i.MX family of applications processors since 2005,” said James Calvin, president of Microcross. “We will continue to be a strong alliance partner with Freescale and are announcing the expansion of our Embedded Linux BSP support and tools for the i.MX35 family.”
Nokia QT Software
“Freescale’s i.MX35 processor family delivers high performance with low power consumption, which makes it a superb platform for the next generation of industrial applications and consumer device products,” said Chuck Piercey, director of Nokia Qt Software Business Development. “The combination of the Qt cross-platform application and UI framework and the i.MX35 processors provides developers with the ability to create an immersive, responsive user experience in a portable package."
PHYTEC
"PHYTEC’s modular support of the advanced i.MX35 and other i.MX processors assists engineers in every stage of embedded design, from evaluation through development and prototyping, to OEM deployment,” said Bodo Huber, chief technology officer at PHYTEC. “With our insert-ready hardware, combined with production-ready Windows Embedded CE and Linux BSPs, OEM users can reach their market goals with minimal development time and reduced design risk. The phyCORE-i.MX35 Rapid Development Kit will be available in early Q2 at a price of 595 Euros ($879 USD) for both Linux and Windows Embedded variants. Kits include a phyCORE-i.MX35 System on Module, Mapper and Carrier Boards, LCD display and pre-loaded operating system images with available board support packages.”
QNX
"With the launch of the i.MX35 processor family, Freescale has introduced a highly versatile processing platform to the general market," said Kroy Zeviar, business alliance manager, QNX Software Systems. "The combination of the QNX Aviage Multimedia Suite and the i.MX35 processors provides customers with a powerful platform on which to build the next generation of fully connected, graphics-rich embedded designs.”
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