Freescale steps into laptop market by introducing silicon and tools for netbook design

Freescale Semiconductor enters the fast-growing netbook market with a comprehensive solution designed to enable netbooks that feature 8.9 inch displays, deliver eight hours of battery life between charges and retail at sub-$200 price points. Based on the new i.MX515 processor featuring ARM Cortex-A8 technology, Freescale's solution includes an software, components and resources to help OEMs quickly develop and deploy netbook products.

Ready netbook reference design developed in partnership with Pegatron based on the i.MX515 processor is available now. The reference design features the i.MX515 processor, Canonical's Ubuntu operating system, a new power management IC from Freescale, the SGTL5000 ultra low-power audio codec and Adobe Flash Lite software, Adobe's Flash Player for mobile phones and devices.

"We see a huge opportunity in the netbook market as consumers demand more cost-effective and higher performing solutions," said Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of Freescale's Networking and Multimedia Group. "Our solution for netbooks will enable OEMs to develop compelling products that feature cell phone-like battery life at extremely aggressive price points. We believe the combination of the i.MX515 processor and related enablement solutions will dramatically accelerate the evolution of this exciting new space."

According to analyst firm ABI Research, consumers are expected to purchase 140 million netbooks in 2013, compared with only 15 million sold in 2008. Often priced between $300 and $400 (USD), netbooks are streamlined, embedded devices that provide more than enough performance for a host of Internet-based activities such as social networking, surfing the Web, using e-mail and other common tasks.

"As was evident in the 2008 holiday season, the netbook market has exploded due to consumer demand for affordable and compact devices that allow users to conduct routine tasks like social networking or shopping on the Web," said Philip Solis, principal analyst at ABI Research. "The netbook market is still in its infancy, and it represents a huge market opportunity for companies like Freescale. As advanced platforms for netbooks become increasingly available, price points will drop and the market will expand."

Integrating an ARM Cortex-A8 core and manufactured using 65-nm process technology, Freescale's new i.MX515 provides up to 2100 Dhrystone MIPS and can scale in performance from 600MHz to 1GHz and feature advanced power management technology.
The i.MX515 supports both DDR2 and mobile DDR1. While mobile DDR1 is ideal for the most power sensitive mobile Internet devices, DDR2 is better suited for netbooks as it provides low power at significantly less cost.
The i.MX515 offer both OpenVG and OpenGL graphics cores to enable 2D and 3D graphics, and Flash and SVG for enhanced user experiences.

A key component of Freescale's netbook solution is the new MC13982 power management IC features battery charging system, four adjustable buck converters for powering the processor core and memory, two boost converters for LCD backlighting, and RGB LED displays along with serial backlighting drivers for display and keypad.