Newport Media Introduces 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi SoC to Address Rapidly Growing M2M Market

BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Newport Media, an innovative fabless communications semiconductor company supplying products to the wireless connectivity and broadcast media industry, today announced its first system-on-chip (SoC) product specifically designed to address the market for IEEE 802.11 based-Machine-to-Machine (M2M) connected products.

“There has been phenomenal growth in the number of Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones over the last several years”

Built upon Newport Media’s leading NMC1000 802.11n SoC for smartphones and tablets, the NMC1500 is a Wi-Fi® SoC that incorporates a Cortus APS3 32bit RISC microprocessor. The addition of this microprocessor and accompanying ROM and RAM enable the NMC1500 to execute the entire network IP stack without the aid of an external host controller.

“There has been phenomenal growth in the number of Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones over the last several years,” said Mohy Abdelgany, president and chief executive officer of Newport Media. “As impressive as this growth has been, the market for other connected devices - the Internet of things - is forecasted to far exceed that of smartphones and tablets. Newport Media believes that the key to this growth, and the use of Wi-Fi as the preferred method of connection, is the ability to drive down the total cost of connecting to the Internet.”

The NMC1500 drives down the total solution cost by significantly reducing the processing and memory resources required by the terminal’s main micro controller unit (MCU). Requiring less than 4KBytes Flash and 1KBytes of RAM from the main MCU to host its driver software, the NMC1500 allows customers to significantly reduce total bill of materials (BOM) cost by enabling main MCUs that are much lower cost than otherwise would be necessary.

The NMC1500 is available in a 40-pin, 5mm X 5mm quad flat no-lead (QFN) package, requiring the industry’s smallest external BOM. Engineering samples are currently available with volume production scheduled to commence in the second quarter of 2013.

Newport Media’s NMC1500 Wi-Fi SoC for M2M will be demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 25-28, 2013.

About Newport Media, Inc.

Newport Media Inc. ("NMI") is a fabless semiconductor company that develops and sells highly integrated solutions for broadcast, wireless connectivity and cellular markets. NMI leverages its unique OFDM baseband, RF, and mixed signal platform technologies to bring to market complete system solutions that are higher performance, lower power and more cost effective than competing solutions. NMI’s portfolio of broadcast communications products include a broad selection of integrated SOC solutions for Mobile TV, Cable, LCD and Set-top box applications. NMI’s wireless connectivity products include integrated SOC solutions for Wi-Fi applications. For more information, visit www.nmisemi.com.

About Cortus S.A.

Cortus S.A. is the cost/performance leader for 32 bit processor IP for systems on chip (SoC). Cortus uses a modern RISC architecture optimized for the new wave of low power, intelligent applications including the Internet of Things (IoT). The Cortus processor family comprises the entry level APS1, the energy efficient APS3R, the high performance APS5 and the floating point FPS6. Integrated circuits containing Cortus cores have been manufactured in high volumes for a wide range of applications including automotive, imaging, M2M controllers, secure microcontrollers, sensors, SIM cards, smart metering and wireless.