Broadcom Enters Applications Processor Market

Broadcom Corporation announced its entry into the applications processor market, with a high performance system-on-a-chip that combines the Broadcom VideoCore multimedia processor and an ARM11 applications processor. The BCM2820 fully supports Linux and is optimized for mobile phones, mobile TVs and portable audio/video/game devices.

The new BCM2820 applications processor offers a range of multimedia features including support for an 8 megapixel digital camera, MPEG-4/H.264 VGA video decoding at 30 frames per second, video encoding at 30 frames per second, and NTSC/PAL TV output via composite, component and S-video connections. The BCM2820 integrates industry standard interfaces with tightly coupled software drivers and stacks to support a wide range of wireless interfaces, including Broadcom's 3G EDGE, WEDGE and HEDGE cellular baseband processors, 802.11x wireless LAN processors and Bluetooth solutions.

Similar to the existing BCM27xx multimedia processor family, the BCM2820 application processor chip is based on Broadcom's VideoCore video-processing engine, making all the chips in the BCM27xx family software compatible with the new BCM2820. Both families, 27xx and 28xx, remain completely programmable and able to handle a wide range of audio and video formats. The programmability of VideoCore technology enables developers to program or re-program different applications in software, rather than requiring new chip designs for each new mobile product.

What differentiates the BCM28xx family from previous BCM27xx products is the integration of an ARM11 embedded microprocessor core that serves as the host processor for advanced mobile device applications such as email, web browsing, file management and graphical user interfaces. Unlike competing solutions, Broadcom's embedded ARM core runs at up to 300MHz, but when coupled with up to 6 billion instructions per second of multimedia processing in the VideoCore processor, it typically needs to run at only less than 200MHz. In fact, the BCM2820 runs as low as 10MHz during full H.264 video playback, reducing the power consumption.

The BCM2820 application processor can handle most software applications and operating systems available on mobile devices. Together with the BCM2820 device, Broadcom also provides a host of Linux-based multimedia software that includes wireless LAN and Bluetooth stacks, audio and video CODECs such as MPEG4, H.264, Windows Media, MP3, 3D audio and audio visualizations, slideshow transitions, image editing applications, 3D graphics acceleration, video camcorder applications with visual effects, WMDRM, MTP, PlaysForSure, and drivers to support cellular baseband modems.