Automotive Multimedia Meets Consumer Products

Travel just about anywhere today and you see someone wearing headphones plugged into a ubiquitous portable consumer multimedia device. These small units have the ability to store large amounts of audio and video content; more recent devices include streaming multimedia combined into a cell phone. The one place you ‘hopefully’ won’t see these units in use is by the operator of a vehicle on public roads and highways or in conjunction with any form of transportation.

The inability to play multimedia files from portable media in automobiles is a frustration for drivers. There are some workarounds that allow them to be used: FM Transmitters, Cassette tape adapters, but these generally produce less than desirable results. Some factory radios now have auxiliary audio inputs for interfacing with a media player or the option for direct iPod connection. While the iPod connection usually allows control of the iPod from the auto multimedia system, it does exclude the other 50% of the non-Apple portable player market.

Automotive manufacturers are working on new systems to allow additional connections to portable consumer devices. Implementation of these connections is through one of more of the following: Bluetooth, SD/SDIO, WiMAX, USB and proprietary connections. Recently the MOST consortium announced that their automotive media bus is now available for incorporation into consumer devices. This may open the way for additional connection methodologies.

Automotive manufacturers are also building multimedia platforms with hard disk and DVD drives. These have been incorporated to allow additional functionality in the areas of Navigation mapping, audio and video content. Combined with a wireless interface, it is also possible to use a wireless network system to download multimedia content to the local hard drive for playback. As most new HDD and DVD drives are using Serial ATA, the automotive manufacturers must now incorporate S-ATA interfaces into their systems.

Lattice is working with automotive manufacturers to provide complete hardware and software solutions for vehicle electronics. From the automotive versions of the LA-MACH4000 CPLD families to the LatticeECP2M FPGA that has on-chip SERDES and can support S-ATA and PCI Express. Lattice is helping automotive customers meet their overall functionality goals - at a lower system cost coupled with a faster time to market.