The key requirements of a
microprocessor for the home
entertainment gateway application are
connectivity and price/performance.
Processors for this application require
dual Fast Ethernet interfaces for routing;
a USB 2.0 device controller; and a PCI
bridge to interface to the IEEE 802.11a/
b/g radios, (serial) ATA storage
controller, MPEG2/AC3 video/audio
SG2062-3
processor and optional IEEE 1394
controller. In addition, they require an I
2
C
bus for controlling the video components
and an infrared-capable serial port for IR
remote control. The processor must
have sufficient performance and memory
bandwidth to handle simultaneous A/V
recording and playback, routing, and file
serving. A crypto engine is also required
in order to accelerate encryption for the
wireless link and to encrypt files stored
on the hard disk.
Because the home entertainment
gateway application is an embedded,
always-on device that requires a reliable
RTOS or Linux® operating system, full
memory management capability is an
asset.
Freescale Semiconductor Solution
The MCF547x Family provides the
essential connectivity requirements for a
home entertainment gateway. It features
a V4e ColdFire® core with large dual
32 KB caches that deliver 410 MIPS
(Dhrystone 2.1) of performance at 266
MHz. The Memory Management Unit
(MMU) allows a full protected-mode OS,
such as standard Linux OS, to be used.
The 32-bit wide DDR SDRAM controller
provides high-memory bandwidth for
A/V, storage, and network data. The onchip 32 KB SRAM can be used to store
critical routines and data, in addition to
keys and initialization vectors for the onchip crypto engine.
The serial peripherals (dual Fast
Ethernets, USB 2.0 device, I
2
C and four
programmable serial ports) are
supported by DMA channels to minimize
CPU overhead. The integrated PCI
bridge supports bus mastering for direct
transfers to and from memory.
With the required key functionalities
integrated into the MCF547x Family, a
range of home entertainment gateway
products can be developed based on the
same core design, but with different PCI
peripherals and software.
Development Tools
Product NameVendorAdditional Information
CodeWarrior™ IDE
CodeWarrior Compiler: C/C++
CodeWarrior Source Level Debugger
RTOS: Packaged with ARC MQX
Hardware Debug Connection
CodeWarrior Cycle Accurate Instruction Set Simulator
Platform Creation Suite for Linux® OS
CodeWarrior Development Studio, ColdFire Edition for Linux
Evaluation Board: Zoom ColdFire Development Kit
ColdFire Card Engines
Zoom Display Kits: QVGA, VGA and SVGA
IDE: Multi
Compiler: C/C++/EC++
RTOS: ThreadX® and INTEGRITY®
Instruction-Set Simulator
Source Level Debugger
Hardware Debug Connection
IDE
Compiler: C/C++
Hardware Debugger: visionICE II
Source Level Debugger: vision CLICK
Network Development Kit
IDE
RTOS
TCP/IP Stack, Web Server
Compilers: C/C++
Source Level Debugger
Hardware Reference Design
IEEE® 802.11b Solution
RTOS: MQX
TCP/IP Stack: RTCS
Internet Security: IPShield with IPsec and SSL
Connectivity: USB and CAN DeveloperKits
Learn More: Contact the Technical Information Center at +1-800-521-6247 or +1-480-768-2130.
For more information about Freescale products, please visit www.freescale.com.