EE Times Under the Hood - June 23, 2008 - (Page U20)

UTH0623MOBILE_PG14_24.QXD 6/10/08 3:44 PM Page 20 under the hood: w w w. e e t i m e s . c o m MOB I L E decoder chip with analog circuits such as an audio D/A converter and SAR A/D converter. The Rolly also uses the Spansion (S)71PL032J40B, a stacked multichip product that packs 32 Mbits of flash and 4 Mbits of SRAM using a 110-nm process lithography. There are two Freescale Semiconductor MB31A microcontrollers on one board and two on the other. These parts are 32-bit MCUs and are likely motor drivers for the rotation and speaker flaps on each side. The Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) BlueCore 3 provides Bluetooth v2.0 capabilities. Since CSR is now shipping BlueCore 5 components, the Rolly design is two generations behind for this part. A second Spansion device, the 29SL800, provides 8 Mbits of CMOS flash, likely intended for startup storage of default settings. The next component is the Wolfson Microelectronics WM8711. This part is low-power stereo digitalto-analog converter with an integrated headphone driver. It’s a curious choice on Sony’s part, considering there is no headphone output on the Rolly player. The final component does not have any clear identifying markings on it, other than a part number, F2378VL. It is a bit difficult to discern the manufacturer or functionality of this device, but an educated guess would be TI’s ultralow-power microcontroller family. This device would enable a quick wakeup from low-power mode to active mode when the Rolly is turned on, and would feed signals to the Freescale MCUs. When the Rolly was shown to colleagues and a live audience at the Embededd Systems ConferenceSilicon Valley recently, most people concurred that the novelty of a motion MP3 player wore off after a few minutes. Further, given its price point, the Rolly is too expensive for an impulse buy. Perhaps, over time, Sony will price the Rolly to appeal to the apparently limited market for dancing MP3 players. ■ • w w w. t e c h o n l i n e . c o m playlist to the next song; pulling the Rolly backward selects the previous song. Music is loaded to the player via USB 2.0 or can be streamed through Bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). Songs can be in MP3, ATrac and AAC formats, with more than 300-kbit/second quality. There is 1 Gbyte of internal memory, but no expansion slot to increase the memory capacity. The software to upload content onto the player is the Japanese version of Sony’s SonicStage and Rolly Motion Park, so additional tracks and motion were not available to determine how well the interface operates and what types of movements are accessible. Compared with other 1-Gbyte MP3 players, the Rolly is quite large, although it is designed less for portability than for novelty’s sake. The unit measures 104 x 65 x 65 mm and weighs about 300 grams. Specifically, compared with the SanDisk Sansa Clip and Apple iPod Shuffle MP3 players, the Rolly is considerably less portable. Sound for the Rolly is produced through two 1.2-watt speakers with a 20-Hz to 20-kHz range. The Rolly is essentially divided into two sections, one on either side of the main housing. The components are located on two identically sized boards. A quick scan of the components reveals some interesting choices, not because of the vendors selected but because of the devices’ maturity. Sony is assumed to have focused its development effort on the unit’s motion aspects and to have relied on familiar semiconductors to IN BRIEF The Sony Rolly is a quaint, dancing MP3 player.When programmed with dance commands using Sony’s Sonic Stage, the eggshaped machine can roll and turn, as well as open its speaker flaps, in time with the music. There were a few preprogrammed songs on the system that demonstrated the capabilities. Quick to show off the latest gadget to everyone in the office, I proceeded to parade it around and got the same response from pretty much everyone: “That’s really cool, but after about five minutes it loses its novelty.” And at $400 for a 1-Gbyte MP3 player, there is little chance of an impulse buy. handle the music. A daughtercard on one board contains the TC58NVG3D4CTG00 flash from Toshiba—a device that Semiconductor Insights analyzed back in 2006. Samsung was the first to introduce a 70-nanometer process lithography for NAND flash, doing so in 2005; but Samsung uses a singlelevel cell (SLC) design, while Toshiba’s 70-nm device uses a multilevel cell (MLC), allowing for twice the storage density in a very similar die size. It is interesting that Sony chose to use Toshiba’s 70-nm device, since Toshiba has had 56-nm devices available for nearly a year now, with 43-nm parts expected in the very near future. Underneath the daughtercard is the only Sony-branded device: the CXD5090, believed to be an audio Component focus While there are some components necessary for a functional MP3 player—such as memory and audio decoder, provided by Toshiba and Sony, respectively—the innovation with the Sony Rolly is through the motion sensitivity.The Analog Devices Inc.’s ADXL330 three-axis iMEMS fulfills this function, providing tilt, position and shock measurement, while enabling motion control for the commands, such as volume, track changing and random play mode. 20 Electronic Engineering Times, TechOnline | June 23, 2008 http://www.techonline.com http://www.eetimes.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Under the Hood - June 23, 2008

Under the Hood - June 23, 2008 Extreme Design: SuitSat Pushes Desigers' Limits Evolution of the Smart Phone Mature Devices get Rolly Rocking GPS: Garmin Nuvi 750 vs. HP iPaq 310 Inside the Sony OLED TV Multizone Dgital Audio Flip Ultra Camcorder - An Ode to Clean Design Robot Guitar Tunes Itself E-book is a Sight for Sore Eyes Scientific Calculator Boils Down to Two ICs $100 BOM Eludes First OLPC Laptop 45 nm: What Intel Didn't Tell You Next Step in NAND Flash Evolution Surveillance on a Shoestring Hot 3G Phone Owes Debt to Analog SecurID Fob: Single-Chip Safety Net

Under the Hood - June 23, 2008

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