Enhanced SH7786 Dual-Core Processor for High-Performance Multimedia - Renesas

Renesas has announced the enhanced SH7786 dual-core 32-bit processor, member of company’s SuperH family, targeted for high-performance multimedia applications. This 65-nm fabricated processor is able to delivers up to 1,920 MIPS @533MHz (960 MIPS each core), and it incorporates a DDR3-SDRAM memory interface for high-speed data transfers, up to 4.27GB/s. With this power, SH7786 can process complex data at high speeds for excellent application response. The SH7786 dual core processor meets the requirements of next-gen car navigation systems that have functions such as high-quality audio reproduction, graphical display capabilities and image recognition. Besides car navigation systems, the new SH7786 is also suitable for other applications such as digital home electronics, game consoles and industrial equipment.

Enhanced SH7786 Dual-Core Processor for High-Performance Multimedia Applications

The enhanced SH7786 integrates a dedicated 32-bit bus for connecting to DDR3-SDRAM at 533MHz, enabling  transfer-rates up to 4.27GB/s.  SH7786’s multiple PCI Express bus interfaces support large-volume data transfers with data throughput up to 800MB/sec. This makes it possible to implement sophisticated drawing capabilities such as smoothing 3D graphics.

The new SH7786 has two SH-4A CPU cores, each of which has a built-in FPU (Floating-point Processing Unit), RAM and cache memory. The design supports both SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) and AMP (asymmetric multiprocessing). A snoop controller is implemented for SMP, which maintains the coherency of both CPUs’ internal caches by handling exchanges of cache update data between the cores.

The clock frequency and four low-power modes of the new SH7786 can be set independently for each CPU. One CPU core can continue to operate at full speed while the other is set to a low-power mode. The FPUs in each CPU core of the new SH7786 operate at up to 533MHz and support both single-precision and double-precision arithmetic operations. Their maximum single-precision performance of 7.46 GFLOPS (giga floating-point operations per second).

The internal cache memory of each CPU core is configured as a 32Kbyte four-way set-associative instruction cache and a 32Kbyte four-way set-associative data cache. Cache coherency support allows high-speed software processing. Also, each core’s 8Kbytes of RAM enables high-speed instruction fetches, while the 16Kbytes of RAM in each core enables high-speed data accesses. System engineers can boost the overall real-time performance of multimedia products by storing exception-handling routines in these on-chip RAM areas.

The enhanced SH7786 implements multiple PCIe (PCI Express) bus interfaces that can be set to operate as one to four lanes, for data transfers at up to 800MB/sec with external memory or other devices that have similar interfaces. A high-speed data transfer function is provided between lanes. This makes it possible, for example, to obtain high-level display capabilities by connecting a high-performance external display device that conforms to the PCIe bus connection specification.

On-chip peripheral functions of SH7786:

• A  High-Speed USB 2.0 (480Mbps) host and function peripheral.
• A IEEE-802.3 MAC (Media Access Controller)
• Power-saving modes: Sleep, Light sleep, and Module standby.
• Other peripherals, including display, sound and communication functions.

Application developers of the new SH7786 can use E10A-USB on-chip debugging emulator with multi-core support. This tool provides a range of flexible simultaneous debugging functions, including simultaneous execution, simultaneous break, and single-CPU break and re-execute. The new SH7786 is fully supported by QNX Neutrino RTOS and the QNX Momentics development suite.

Availability of enhanced SH7786:
The R8A77860DBGV (-40°C to +85°C)  and R8A77860NBGV (-20°C to +85°C) will be available in Q4 this year. Sample price is $75.

Source: Enhanced SH7786 Dual-Core Processor