Texas Instruments has announced a new family of ARM Cortex-A8 based microprocessors which will offer one of its lowest cost ARM chips, which is significant for a Cortex-A8 level device.
Prices for the Sitara AM335x microprocessors will start at $5.
This is a 700mW Cortex-A8 microprocessor, but the emphasis is on low cost.
Development can start with an $89 open source BeagleBone development board, the latest open source hardware platform from the BeagleBoard.org community.
This has a highly capable processor with full NEON single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) support running at clock rate up to 720MHz. Standby power is 7mW.
There is a 3D graphics accelerator (20 million triangles per second) and touchscreen capable display controller.
There is also an evaluation module, with 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth interfaces and a seven-inch LCD touchscreen for $995.
OS support is Linux, Android and Windows Embedded Compact 7.
TI’s Linux EZ SDK and support for Android 2.2 will be available next month for free download, with Windows Embedded Compact 7 coming in the New Year.
There will also be support for QNX, Mentor and Wind River third-party real-time operating systems.
www.ti.com