Intel…err Marvel, who bought the Xscale line FROM Intel has just released the latest in the Xscale line up.  The PXA168 wich is an ARM9 core with all the toppings (Ethernet, flash interface, USB etc). Built on a 55nm process it achieves speeds of up to 1GHz while pulling merely 1Watt of power.

Whats it for? “Web connected digital photo frames” says Marvell

Thats an incredible amount of CPU for a picture frame but it is the direction things are going.  CPU’s like this are making coding much faster and easier, your embedded code can be very bloated, and inefficient, which equals faster development cycles and quicker profits.

Source: EEProductCenter.com

Today I got a not so old (2006) Infocus IN24 projector.  It had bit the dust due to corrosion  from the warm salty air in Maui.

What did I find inside? besides some amazingly cool optics, and power components, there was a large TI DLP Processor, specifically the DDP2000, a rather large BGA chip, that integrates most of the projectors functions as well as a DSP core, and a ARM 946 CPU core. running at 120MHz, good enough for 800×600 resolution.

Processor is the one marked DLP, bare die is a SRAM, far right is the DLP mirror, imaging chip (just layed on the board for your viewing)

Ti DLP ARM CPU and Sensor

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