Silicon Motion Inc., a leading supplier of multimedia storage and acceleration solutions for mobile devices, today announced the SM501™, the first entry in the company’s new Voyager™ family of power-efficient, high-performance mobile multimedia coprocessors. With the SM501, Silicon Motion offers a multimedia companion chip targeted for mobile devices that are optimized for increased battery life and high-resolution desktop-equivalent graphics performance and full-motion video. This combination of power and performance redefines the mobile product segment by enabling previously unseen levels of graphics and video acceleration for mobile and embedded devices.

The SM501 is an ideal solution for a host of devices and applications, including Video over IP, PDAs, videoconferencing, convergence devices, car telematics and other non-PC products that require the broadest range of multimedia performance and functionality.

In addition to a power-optimized, high-performance graphics and video acceleration engine, SM501 provides key integrated features that minimize external components and lower overall system cost. The SM501 supports all leading RISC CPU architectures in the mobile space through a direct 32-bit CPU or standard PCI interface. The SM501 integrates numerous interfaces, including a TV encoder interface, digital video input port (supports MPEG decoders or video capture solutions), and an integrated USB 1.1 controller. Finally, the SM501 comes with integrated memory options eliminating cost and space required for external memory.

The SM501 provides complete embedded support by supplying a complete range of embedded OS drivers, partnering with developers and supplying a development kit to ease a customer’s driver development and enable fast time-to-market.

“The introduction of the SM501 will redefine how design engineers evaluate the capabilities and tradeoffs that have traditionally been made for mobile products,” said Michael Sanchez-Parodi, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Silicon Motion, Inc. “The incredible energy-efficiency of our solution, combined with new levels of graphics and multimedia acceleration, bring a new freedom to pursuing cutting-edge, designs that still maintain great battery life and excellent performance. We believe this is a real win for companies that are seeking to redefine the mobile product segment with multimedia and graphics capabilities previously unseen in this category.”

Industry Quotes
“By combining AMD’s™ high-performance, low-power Geode™ and Alchemy™ Solutions with Silicon Motion’s expertise in low-power graphics and multimedia, we are able to provide our customers with leading-edge system solutions for the mobile multimedia space," said Phil Pompa, Vice President of Marketing at AMD Personal Connectivity Solutions group.

"We are very impressed with both the functionality and the new capabilities offered by the SM501 – Silicon Motion is set to shake up the established order in the mobile space with this product,” said Jon Peddie, Principal Analyst at Jon Peddie Associates (Tiburon, CA). “Silicon Motion really thought through the issues that are specific to the mobile product designer and the specific challenges they face. By offering not just the SM501, but also some of the world’s fastest flash controllers, they offer a compelling argument to bring new customers into their portfolio while demonstrating to existing customers that they are a continued innovator in this market. This is a company to watch.”

Pricing and Availability
The SM501 is immediately available to customers in OEM quantities. The base part is priced at $11.00 in 100K quantities.

About Silicon Motion
Silicon Motion delivers fast, low-power solutions that accelerate the capture, use, storage and the retrieval of audio, video and images for new mobile devices to provide a rich multimedia experience. Silicon Motion delivers innovative and cost-effective solutions to its worldwide customers, which include Intel, Lexmark NCR, NEC and Sharp. Founded in 1995, Silicon Motion is a privately held, with headquarters and development centers in Hsinchu, Taiwan and San Jose, CA and sales offices located throughout the world.

Silicon Motion is a registered trademark of Silicon Motion, Inc. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

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