Freescale Congratulates Ford SYNC on its Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award
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Freescale Technology enables auto infotainment features that drivers expect and demand
AUSTIN, Texas - Oct. 15, 2007-When drivers hit the road in their Ford 2008 model-year cars featuring the award-winning SYNC - a fully integrated, voice-activated in-car communications and entertainment system - few will know a Freescale i.MX application processor is the engine behind SYNC.
Ford SYNC was honored with a Popular Mechanics 2007 Breakthrough Award last week and is one of 10 products honored in 2007 for setting new benchmarks in design, creativity and engineering. SYNC, designed in association with Microsoft, is the first automotive application to be developed on the Freescale i.MX31 application processor.
"Our sincere congratulations to Ford for earning this prized accolade from Popular Mechanics," said Paul Marino, director and general manager of Freescale's Multimedia Applications Division. "Through voice recognition, hands-free controls, USB and wireless connectivity, the Ford SYNC is a convenient way to communicate and be entertained while on the road. We are proud to be part of such inspired thinking."
Freescale's auto-grade i.MX31 application processors provide automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), such as industry-leader Ford, with a rugged solution to enable the features drivers seek: hands-free phone operation, voice recognition and high-speed data transfers of voice, messages and multimedia content. The i.MX31 processor, in conjunction with Microsoft Auto platform software, allows consumer devices such as cellular phones or portable media players, to be connected seamlessly to the SYNC unit offering a new level of communication and entertainment convenience.
About Ford SYNC and Freescale
Ford SYNC, based on the Microsoft Auto platform, is a fully integrated and updateable, customizable media system that allows car occupants to operate both Bluetooth® technology-enabled mobile phones and nearly all portable media players with simple voice commands or hand controls on the steering wheel. Developed with Microsoft, SYNC offers a new level of communications and entertainment convenience. SYNC lets users control and personalize electronic devices in their vehicle. An integral part of SYNC is Freescale's i.MX31 processor, which runs the Microsoft operating system and applications, handles audio signal processing for hands-free phone operation and performs voice recognition. Additionally, the i.MX31 chip uses USB technology to enable high-speed data transfer between the SYNC system and a mobile phone or portable media device.
Freescale i.MX31 applications processor
Based on the ARM11(TM) platform, the auto-qualified i.MX31 processors run high-performance in-vehicle communication and infotainment systems while providing up to 400 MHz processing speed and efficient memory systems, including L-2 cache. Meeting the stringent specifications of the AEC standard helps to ensure Freescale customers that the auto-grade i.MX31 processors will deliver a consistent level of quality and reliability within the demanding automotive environment.
Freescale's i.MX31 applications processors are engineered to deliver a robust central processing unit (CPU) that customers can capitalize on to differentiate their software. It provides excellent speech recognition performance due to its efficient memory architecture and the vector floating point unit.
The i.MX31 auto-grade processors are equipped to run multiple operating systems and application frameworks to support the different needs of the market and automotive OEMs. Operating systems supported include Microsoft® Auto, Linux® OS, QNX® Neutrino® and other leading RTOSes.
Learn more about Freescale's i.MX applications processors family at: www.freescale.com/imx.
About Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. The privately held company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Freescale is one of the world's largest semiconductor companies with 2006 sales of $6.4 billion (USD). www.freescale.com
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