AUTOMOTIVE MULTIMEDIA AND THE AUTOMOTIVE ST PC CONCEPT
Paolo Gonella-Pacchiotti · 1998
During recent years, great achievements have been reached in communication (e.g. GSM), information (e.g. GPS, RDS-TMC), entertainment (DAB, DVD, digital audio, games) and office automation (Internet, e-mail) products and services for transportation devices (cars and other vehicles). As a consequence, the need for suitable multimedia architecture becomes more evident and stringent. At the same time, other technologies, once prohibitively complex and costly, are also becoming affordable: semiconductors and new materials technologies promise increases in performance at lower costs, bringing high speed and computation power to the level of the single devices. Moreover, standardization does not lead just to solutions compatible with consolidated systems, such as PC and operating systems, but also opens the way to new and promising concepts, technologies, products and services such as Java, Network Computers, Internet, etc. Perfectly aware of its expertise, STMicroelectronics is deeply involved in superintegration programs, along with network architecture and buses: on this way, the latest milestone is the high performing multimedia PC on a single chip, known as ST PC Automotive. For the covering abstract see IRRD E102946.