Single-Task Microprocessors Developed for Internet Gears
In the past, accessing the Internet was done via a standard PC. However, today the Post-PC centric era is imminent, where Internet access will be via an information appliance. New single task microprocessors will be needed to drive IAs and STMicroelectronics has developed the STPC to meet the needs of a new era.
Since the boom of the Internet age, in the "PC-centric" era, having a do-it-all personal computer (PC) concept for Internet access, gaming, and productive work was common. However, lately more and more people are discovering that it is no longer necessary to own a PC in order to access the Internet. This comes as welcome news to those that like the Internet, but not using a PC. Even those that do are hesitant to access the Internet after eight hours of PC use at the office. A recent survey of 6,000 PC users showed they wasted an average of 5.1 hours a week in sheer computer hassle.
Post-PC Centric Era
Today, gadgets are no longer a novelty. People are beginning to look for a tool of choice for information access and processing, some form of information appliance (IA). Take for instance, the latest buzz about Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) enabled mobile phones that provide WAP services like travel bookings, banking, movie-ticket purchasing, stock quotes, e-mail, etc. The "post-PC-era" is here! The use of a PC will probably be restricted to the office and the number of additional PCs will be reduced by the emergence of IAs. At home, even when a server is needed, it will be an IA not a PC. Instead of buying a second PC just for Internet browsing a portable Web tablet will be used. Moreover, video-conferencing and watching digital video disc (DVD) movies will be done on a Web-console rather than on a PC.
Studies have indicated that more than 100 million adults in the US (approx. 1/2 of the US adult population) had used the Internet by mid-99. By the end of 2000, Internet users will number 87 million in Western Europe, 58 million in Asia-Pacific and 149 million in North America. The Internet is an overwhelming phenomena that cannot be ignored. Almost every electronics manufacturer are jumping on the bandwagon with a desire to grab some sort of market share by producing a winning IA product, as a result, all forms of IAs are appearing.
There has to be some form of underlying engine behind every IA. Fitting a standard PC motherboard is the fastest and simplest way to do the job, but not always the neatest or cost effective method. The emergence of IAs brings with it a new breed of systems that are specially built for a single-task in mind. Unlike a regular PC or workstation, these systems hide their operating system (OS) and computational abilities behind a task-oriented interface.
IA Considerations
A developer of IAs currently has many microprocessors to choose from, however, it is not easy to identify the appropriate one. There are many factors that could affect a decision apart from price and paper specifications. First, an IA must not have a fan. Unlike PC users, consumers hate fans that create unwanted noise in the living room. Next, it has to be low power consumption. The system should be in standby mode when not in use, very much like a video cassette recorder (VCR). Lastly, it has to be low cost. The final product must be affordable for the mass market. Taking a standard PC microprocessor to build an IA, such as Pentium may not necessarily be the best way out in terms of cost versus performance.
The STPC Solution
STMicroelectronics believes that the future generation of IAs needs a different type of microprocessor from what the market offers. As a broad-based semiconductor supplier we reuse many of the company's IP to build a product to meet our customer's requirements. For IAs, ST has chosen the x86 path due to the fact that designing an IA product on x86 platform allows for an incredible assortment of software and hardware development tools. Compilers, assemblers, emulators, debuggers are readily available, and engineers familiar with the architecture are also easy to find. Moreover, x86 platforms are universal, and a well-understood and proven architecture. The final silicon consists of a x86 processor core connected to the internal bus through a 64-bit host interface, a 64-bit shared memory architecture, a 64-bit memory controller, a super video graphics array (SVGA) accelerated graphics controller, an integrated device electronics (IDE) interface, TFT output, TV output, CRT output, PCI-ISA bus controller and other features for PC compatibility. The final product is called the STPC (Fig 1, 2).
The STPC has enabled our customers to bring their ideas to market on time with minimal redesign efforts, whilst keeping up with technology. The level of integration of the final system consists of fewer discrete components that results in smaller form factor systems not achievable with the current x86 architecture. The most important factor is the large reduction in system complexity and cost which should ultimately benefit the end user.
The graphics pipeline has a 64-bit throughput with a transfer rate of over 500 Mbytes/s using static/synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM). This allows for higher resolution screens and greater color depth. The 640 x 480 resolution and 24-bit color depth means the graphics bandwidth consumption is less than 20% of the total bandwidth shared by the system and graphics memory. This surpasses the conventional 32-bit implementation of a shared memory architecture where the bottleneck is often created by a unbalanced partition between the two sets of memory.
The video output pipeline incorporates a video-scaler and color space converter function and provisions in the CRT controller to display a video window. When repainting the screen, the CRT controller fetches both the video as well as the non-video frame buffer in two separate internal first-in first-out (FIFO). The video stream can be color-space converted (optionally) and smooth scaled. Smooth interpolative scaling in both horizontal and vertical direction are implemented. Color and chroma key functions are also implemented to allow mixing video streams with non-video frame buffer. The video output passes directly to the random access memory digital to analog converter (RAMDAC) for monitor output or through another optional color space converter (RGB to 4:2:2 YCrCb) to the programmable anti-flicker filter.
The flicker filter is configured as either a two line filter with gamma correction (primarily designed for DOS text display) or a 3 line flicker filter (primarily designed for graphical displays). The video output pipeline of the STPC consumer-S interfaces directly to the internal digital TV encoder. It takes a 24-bit RGB non-interlaced pixel stream and converts it to a multiplexed 4:2:2 YCrCb 8-bit output stream. The logic includes a progressive to interlaced scan converter and logic to insert appropriate CCIR656 timing reference codes into the output stream. It facilitates the high quality display of VGA or full screen video streams received via the video input port to standard NTSC or PAL televisions. The ADPC provides a 32-bit interface to PCI and ISA bus expansion.
Building an Intelligent IA
One of the largest potential adoption markets for IA products is the home market. The convergence of PC and home appliances makes it easier to get on the Internet via a non-PC product. The alternative is to use the TV as a display medium and some kind of interactive Web-box connected to the Internet. Some manufacturers have gone one step further to include Internet access features inside a conventional TV set. Soon TVs with Internet capability will retail for the same price as current TVs equipped with teletext only. The STPC consumer-S provides an ideal low cost solution to make this happen (Fig 3).
When looking at the basic system overview one will notice that there are very few external components needed to form the entire system. On the silicon itself, the x86 core occupies a small footprint on the silicon real estate space, the remaining area are STMicroelectronics value add derived from the company's IP.
Interactive Web-Box Application
One IA application that is possible by using the STPC consumer-S is an interactive Web-box (Fig 4). The basic system consists of an infrared remote control and keyboard (optional), and a smartcard for restricted access and keeping vital log-in information. For connectivity, there is a telephone line plug, power plug and two sets of RCA or SCART connectors for video-in and video-out to the TV. The end user simply hooks up the Web-box to a conventional TV, plugs in a normal analog telephone line, and powers up the box just like any other consumer appliance. With a single click on the remote control, the user is connected to the Internet in less than a minute versus a typical 10 minutes on a PC.
The system stores its OS and applications in the IDE interface flash cards. Depending on the implementation, it supports instant bootloader without the need for system basic input/output system (BIOS). Also, there is a common set of memory for program execution and display output. For those that like to access the Internet and watch TV simultaneously, the implementation of a "real-time" picture-in-picture feature that is supported directly with the digital video-input port makes this possible. The Web-box takes the TV signal from the TV, brings in the video stream overlaying the video on a predefined area on the Web page (which is graphics) using color keying. The overlayed area is scalable to any size which is preprogrammed by the manufacturer. Similarly, one can connect an analog camera or VCR to the video-in cable for other purposes.
Some of the target applications that comes with the Web-box are e-mail (that has voice recording and video-capture capability), Web page access, search engine, ISP configuration and a virtual keyboard. The overall bill-of-material is well within US$100. As it provides both PCI and ISA buses, one can "upgrade" the system in the future to include DVD playback, and perhaps video-conferencing over asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL).
Apart from this application, the STPC family's existing applications also include Net-enabled TVs, in-flight entertainment, car-infotainment, thin-client terminals, gambling machines, network-attached-storage systems, industrial control terminals, Internet kiosks, point-of-sale systems, and many more.
Development Facilities
To support system development, STMicroelectronics has worked with CAD-UL of Germany to port their embedded software development tool-chain for STPC. CAD-UL is a manufacturer of software development cross tools for embedded systems based on x86 architecture. The tool suite contains C/C++/EC++ compiler, C/C++ libraries, linker, assembler, high-level language debugger. All tool components can be configured with Workbench (integrated development environment). The tool allows debugging of full ANSI C++ applications as well as C and Assembler. For software developers but also for hardware developers, the bitfield editors for the peripheral registers are useful features.
The STPC has well over 450 internal registers, XDB's bit-field editors allow the user to edit every one of these registers. This facility is particularly useful for debugging, for example, one can see the real-time effect of enabling and disabling the cache without having to write any code. The appropriate registers can be manipulated by a click of the mouse. All of the run-time register values can be recorded in a file, which can later be used for validation or comparison purposes. As well as being able to manipulate register settings on-the-fly, the bit field editor supplies a detailed help/description of each bit of the register. Moreover, STMicroelectronics provides evaluation kits that consist of an evaluation board that is ready to run. Operating system graphic drivers, full technical documentation and tools can be downloaded from the Internet to assist the development operation.
STPC has been recognized by many software vendors as the "preferred" IA platform, as such the STPC family is supported by a vast variety of well-known OS system vendors in the market. These include Microsoft Windows 3.1, 95, 98, Windows CE , Embedded NT, DOS, Microware OS-9, QNX Photon, Citrix Metaframe and Linux.
However, not every application has a bootloader, some applications still need to have a system BIOS for bootup. To meet the needs of these systems it is supported by several BIOS vendors such as AMI, Award, Phoenix, General Software, Datalight, and PC Engines.
Bright Future for Ias
STMicroelectronics foresees that in the next 5 to 10 years, a typical home will have a collection of devices that enable access to a wide network of services and media. Online buying is going to be one of the key driving forces with sales estimated at US$184 billion within three years and the curve is headed straight up. In the 1980s the automated teller machine (ATM) revolutionized banking, minimizing the need for banks to employ dozen of bank tellers. In the future, the ATM function will move to the IA, online customers will be able to access their bank 24-hours and e-mail will be used to handle information flows between the customer and the bank.
The Internet will be delivering video, audio and data. Internet access will be charged by the packet size and not by the hour. As such e-mail, IRC and Web browsing will be freely accessible, while audio download and video-conferencing will be the main revenue of the Internet service providers. There will be more alternative intelligent devices in the home that will serve these functions but will not be the equivalent of a PC in every room. The interactive low cost Web-box is one of these intelligent devices available today, that will extend itself to have some level of storage and their own connection to the Internet. As the need arises, the Web-box will provide video storage (replacing today's analog VCR), Internet access, cable or satellite TV, video-conferencing and productivity tools. STMicroelectronics will continue to improve its current range of STPC products to meet these future needs.
The release of STPC makes obsolete the hassle of sourcing different discrete components during the product development, upgrade and redesign phase. Compatibility and reliability issues could also be minimized in the final product. The compactness of the devices are suitable for various board sizes new form factors will evolve. Low heat dissipation allows it to be used for a vast range of applications. The flexibility of the solution enables system designers to expand their imagination to build more intelligent IAs -- today.
(Donald Leo, Segment Manager, Multimedia & Peripheral Segment, Technical Marketing & Business Development, STMicroelectronics, Taiwan: Feb. 2000, Nikkei Electronics Asia)
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