NEC MPU integrates >18 peripherals

The VR4181A 64-bit microprocessor integrates more than 18 peripherals to provide an SoC solution for portable devices, automotive communications, and industrial and telematics applications. The peripherals include multimode LCD and LED controllers, touch-panel and keyboard controllers, USB host and client, three UARTs, CSI and I2C interface.

The VR4181A also integrates an AC-97 interface, three PWM channels and I2S IrDA, external DMA interface, GPIO interrupts, and two CompactFlash connections. The chip is the latest addition to the company's VR4100 processor line designed to provide low-power operation with high integration.

Manufactured using NEC's 0.255m process technology, the VR4181A also features a six-stage pipeline and a 131MHz VR4120 core that delivers 157MIPS, with a power consumption of 500mW at full clock speed. It also features standby, suspend and hibernate modes, where power consumption is claimed to be measured in the 5W level.

The 240-pin FPBGA device has an 8Kb instruction cache and 8Kb data cache. It supports the MIPS I, II, III and 16 instruction sets. It also supports SRAM, SDRAM, Flash and SyncFlash memory.

The product is priced at $20 each in 10,000-unit quantities.