Connectivity platform suits emerging mobile apps

QuickLogic developed ArcticLink, a programmable connectivity solution platform targeting mobile devices. The platform reduces design time and risk by embedding high-performance controllers, a programmable fabric for implementing additional controllers and peripheral connectivity, as well as a selectable processor interface. ArcticLink supports emerging mobile applications including smartphones, media players, navigation systems, industrial products and ExpressCard peripherals.

The hardwired interfaces in ArcticLink include a USB 2.0 high-speed On-The-Go (OTG) controller with integrated PHY and a SD/SDIO/MMC/CE-ATA host controller. The USB 2.0 OTG controller supports the maximum USB speed of up to 480Mbps and can be configured as either a host or a device (OTG). The SD/SDIO/MMC/CE-ATA controller provides a SD card 2.0, SDIO host 2.0, MMC 4.1 or CE-ATA 1.10 compliant peripheral interface at speeds of up to 52MHz. Other functions, such as PCI, IDE, NAND flash controller, additional SDIO host controllers, SPI, Bluetooth 2.0 UART, display controllers and other custom interfaces, can be implemented in the programmable fabric from QuickLogic's library.

ArcticLink gives developers the ability to harness technologies to their application processors without reducing CPU performance. The on-chip programmable fabric can be configured to interface to most application processors. An internal split-bus architecture allows the processor to establish sustained data transfers between the various host controllers without further intervention.

Samples will be available Q2 2007. Pricing is less than $4 in high volumes.

- Emily Gleason
eeProductCenter