Here in Detroit, much like other places in the Midwest, we are trying to put the long winter (and spring that felt like winter) behind us. With the warmth of summer sunshine, we become mobile again, traveling to baseball games, camping trips and amusement parks. Yes, the season after spring is the "summer driving season." The family vacation is that rite of passage that provides proof that winter is truly over, which means it’s crucial to take a vehicle that is safe and fun for the whole family. And that means a solid infotainment system - one that can deliver the information needed by all passengers in the car: navigation and vehicle status information for Dad (think cluster display), media playback options for Mom to choose from and for all to listen to (think USB, Pandora™, TuneIn®), access to social media and other cloud content for Josh or Sarah (think Facebook, Twitter and the like) and gaming choices for little Tommy (think Angry Birds or Words with Friends) .
This use case is easy to dream up and is the desire of nearly every family heading out on the road this summer. Yet, most cars on the road cannot deliver this promise and when they do, it requires a number of modules working in tandem to pull together the experience: modem boxes, radio silver boxes, connectivity modules, display and center stack modules as well as rear seat entertainment boxes, all connected by a collection of wires and connectors that all add up to excessive cost and weight.
A little over twelve months ago, I was part of talented team of TIers that set out to design our next-generation OMAP™ processor - "Jacinto 6". The goal was to create a single system-on-chip (SoC) that delivers on the expectations of the summer driving season use case at an affordable point that meets the needs of the masses.
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The requirements were daunting …
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The solution is impressive … the solution is Jacinto 6
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The use case of this summer driving season road trip is satisfied by one SoC with enough processing and graphics prowess to satisfy several users, capability to drive multiple displays, and enough media and connectivity to satisfy all. It is pretty difficult to find this functionality today in a single automotive module, let alone a single chip.
The dream is now reality. Texas Instruments is at Telematics Update Detroit this week to give a first hand demo of Jacinto 6 in action.
Get a glimpse of Jacinto 6 now with our interactive image! Learn more here.
