CEATEC JAPAN (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) is the largest international exhibition in Asia for the technology and electronics sectors, including the fields of imaging, information, and communications.

NEC Electronics featured "platformOViA", a platform solution for system application, relating to digital AV, automobile electronics, and cellular phone developments. Several demonstrations were displayed and this report is written to assist you to experience CEATEC 2005.

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• Semiconductors Platform Solution: "platform OViA"
• System LSI Solution for Cellular Phone: SMP Parallel Multi-core based technology
• DVD Recorder
• SCOMBO/HD
• Automobile System Solution
• All Flash MCU

Nowadays, the advancements and shortening of product cycle in electronic industry seems to be endless and thus imposing great pressures for electronic makers to shorten their time in R&D even in areas outside of their expertise.

"platformOViA" from NEC Electronics is aimed to ease off this burden by offering our expertise and suitable combination of products that truly meets developers' needs.

The three main focuses of "platformOViA" include digital AV, mobile applications and automotive systems. By utilizing "platformOViA", required development time and resources can be reduced.

At CEATEC 2005, platformOViA-based solutions can be seen in numerous demonstrations.

• NEC Electronics Launches platformOViA™ Semiconductor Solution Platform
  
  

The common approach to enhance CPU processing ability by raising clock frequency also leads to high power-consumption and an overheated chip, which is unacceptable in a cellular phone design.

To counter this problem, multi-core systems equipped with multiple CPU's, is used to allocate the processes among CPUs and thus increasing the overall performance.

During CEATEC 2005, NEC Electronics exhibited the MP211 multi-core processor and how this product could be offered as a integral solution through platformOViA. The MPcore System with SMP parallel processing-enabled was demonstrated at CEATEC 2005.

Although MP211 allocates one CPU to one application, this system can also allocate multiple CPU to one application. With this approach, processing performance is raised without raising the clock frequency.
Despite of its difficulty in development, NEC Electronics has stepped forward in delivering what will be the mainstream system in the near future.

• Application Processor

• System Application: Mobile

DVD Recorder Solution

Since DVD recorders' establishment as a high-end AV electronics in the market, its functionality and performance has been advancing steadily and thus shortening the product cycle in the market. This trend has compelled manufacture to design and develop systems in a more efficient way.

With digital AV as one of our focused expertise, NEC Electronics offers a total solution based on EMMArchitecture, with MPEG signal processor part as the core of the system, and peripherals as well. This solution was exhibited in CEATEC.

Until now, the reference board had been rather bulky and completion level was not close to market. The reference board exhibited this time not only is smaller (suitcase size), but also incorporates displays and various switch wiring that could be found in the actual market product and thereby making the evaluation set much closer to the market product.

For more information:

• System Application: DVD Recorder

DVD Recorder Interface Solution

In addition to the solutions mentioned above, NEC Electronics also offers interface solutions for DVD recorder.

Flash microcontrollers, which enable user to rewrite memory, are used for the control panel rather than the 8-bit MCU's that is often used by other vendors. NEC Electronics is currently developing system that could easily integrate control panel software into Flash microcontrollers. Developers could use a mouse to complete the programming of operation scheme on a DVD recorder.

For more information:

• AllFlash MCU

With the growing popularity of digital high vision, the next-generation optical disk storage market has been on the rise.

NEC Electronics is currently developing SCOMBO/HD based on the HD DVD standard. This device will be developed based on the current SCOMBO3EX and add HD DVD standard-based chip to it. By doing this, the existing control/processing software can make a smooth transition into the new standard in the future.

For more information:

• System Application: DVD Recordable Drive

Depending on the speed of LAN, CAN, LIN or Flexray is utilized to communicate various information within a car to create an advanced driving environment.

Imagine a future car where various controls, such as speed, car's condition, information, etc, are working together to deliver advanced cruising or information that could enhance both driving experience and safety.

The demo in CEATEC 2005 displays a camera, navigation screen, and two cars where if the rear car is following at a dangerous distance, the navigation screen will display a warning to the driver. In addition, the fully functional Flexray evaluation set was also displayed.

With 8-bit and 32-bit AllFlash MCUs from NEC Electronics, development time required can be greatly reduced.

During CEATEC 2005, the AllFlash MCU product lineup and the development environment were on display. Also, live demos of writing commands into Flash MCU 78K0/Kx2 in 5 seconds were on view.

For more information:

• AllFlash MCU