STM Announces Availability of Multiple Software Platforms for Nomadik Application Processor to Drive Next Generation of Mobile Multimedia Handsets

Launched in 2006, the STn8815 builds on the fundamental Nomadik family features of ultra-low power consumption, open platform strategy, exceptional video and audio quality, very small footprint and scalable performance for cutting-edge handheld consumer products.

The STn8815 implements a multiple-core distributed architecture together with a series of breakthroughs in video-coding efficiency and inventive algorithms, enabling smart phones, feature-rich portable multimedia devices and players, Internet tablets, portable navigation devices and mobile TVs to play broadcasted media content, record images and video clips, and perform bidirectional audio-visual communication with other systems in real time.

“The Nomadik STn8815 has already been chosen for a myriad of leading-edge mobile consumer products from advanced multimedia phones to mobile TVs to portable navigation devices,” said Teppo Hemia, Director of the Mobile Chipset Platform Business Unit within ST’s Wireless Multimedia Division. “And now available with a pre-integrated choice of the leading mobile software platforms, the STn8815’s best-in-class video performance is a simply unbeatable offering to meet the challenging time-to-market demands from multimedia handset makers.”

The pre-integration of industry-leading operating systems and application frameworks in the STn8815 hardware/software platform provides handset manufacturers with faster time-to-market and lower cost-of-ownership in the development of mobile multimedia consumer products. The STn8815 platforms for Symbian OS/S60, Linux, Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded CE include all the necessary software and middleware modules, together with application and peripheral drivers, taking full advantage of the STn8815’s hardware resources and in particular the chip’s smart multimedia accelerators. Additionally, the Bill-of-Materials for OEMs is also significantly reduced with the chip’s smart imaging accelerator, capable of directly interfacing up to 5-megapixel camera modules, which eliminates need for an external coprocessor, providing important savings in PCB space and cost.

Additional hardware enhancements of the STn8815 include increased clock speed of its ARM9 embedded processor and a wider range of package options. The STn8815 combines the low-power multimedia performance of its smart multimedia accelerators with the ARM926EJ CPU core and a level-2 cache internal memory, which has now been boosted up to 393MHz, for general-purpose software processing and operating system support. The range of packaging options now includes: a 12 x 12 x 1mm, 0.5-pitch BGA (ball-grid-array) package, as the best compromise between compactness and easy onboard routing; a 9 x 9 x 1mm, 0.4 pitch BGA package, designed to fit the most space-constrained mobile designs; and a 14 x 14 x 1mm, 0.5mm-pitch package-on-package, enabling the smallest PCB footprint.