Novo chip da Freescale possibilitará e-Books de US$ 98

Um novo chip da Freescale tem como objetivo reduzir o custo dos livros digitais para menos de US$ 98:

"Developed in cooperation with E-Ink, maker of the Vizplex electrophoretic display universally used in all of today's popular e-readers, the i.MX508 system-on-chip (SoC) combines a hardware Vizplex controller with a fast ARM Cortex-A8 applications processor and special e-reader power-savings modes. (...)

To help original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) meet that magic $98 price point, Freescale has integrated an E-Ink display controller into the SoC alongside Freescale's i.MX508 applications processor for a total cost under $10 (compared to as much as $20 for a standalone display controller today). The i.MX508 also integrates flash memory, dual USB controllers, a DDR2 low-power high-speed interface to SDRAM, support for an auxiliary LCD (like that used on Barnes and Noble's Nook) and other integrated capabilities to reduce the OEMs bill-of-materials.

"We believe the i.MX508 will reduce an e-reader's part counts and lower other costs associated with electronic paper display control functionality by as much as 50 percent," said Braddom." (Fonte: EE Times)