W H I T E PA P E R

Scott Eisenhart
OMAP Platform
User Experience manager

Robert Tolbert
OMAP Platform
marketing manager

Introduction Designing for the Use Case:

Today’s wireless mobile devices offer a wealth Using the OMAP™ 4 platform to overcome
of applications, everything from Internet brows-
ing to video playback and record to CD-quality
the challenges with integrating multiple
audio playback. In addition, mobile phones applications
are offering applications requiring multiple
antennas, such as FM, GPS, Bluetooth® and
Complex use-case challenges
WLAN. Designing a platform that can suc-
When designing for the best user experience, there are four main complex use-case
cessfully incorporate all of these applications
challenges that have to be overcome. The first of these is designing for sufficient bandwidth.
as well as the next generation of applications,
such as HD video, high-fidelity audio and digital The system must have enough memory, bus and processing bandwidth to handle the amount

SLR-like imaging is a challenge. of information coming in and going out of the system without experiencing any system hangs.

To create the best possible user experi-
ence, it takes a whole new way of looking at the
design of the device. Handsets are no longer just
for making a phone call and perhaps receiving
a text. A use case might look like this: You are
in the middle of watching a movie streaming
over WLAN when a call comes through. The
best use case would be for the phone to
automatically switch to the call using your
Bluetooth headset, pausing the movie, and
then when the caller hangs up automatically
switching back to the movie and resume playing
from where you left off.
Designing for these complex use cases
The next challenge is latency. Users expect to have applications open instantly and to
move between applications with no delay. Designing for the smallest possible latency in
a system requires efficient resource sharing as well as highly optimized software.
The third challenge to designing for the use case is achieving seamless transitions
between applications – in other words, having multiple applications in the same handset
all sharing resources without interfering or interrupting each other. It is a significant challenge
to design applications with maximum performance while maintaining coexistence.
The final challenge is designing for all-day battery life. Designing within the confines
of today’s available battery power while providing the performance needed for today’s top
applications, is a challenge. To find the optimal balance between power consumption and
performance, a platform has to be designed with a holistic power management approach,
one that looks at the entire system and not just on a chip-by-chip basis.
In order to meet these use-case challenges, the handset must be architected at the

requires breaking it down into the system system level, not just at the chip level. TI has achieved this in designing the OMAP 4

components, such as Bluetooth, video encode/
decode, image processing, audio, etc. Each
component can then be optimized as well as
the interaction between components and the
system. The OMAP™ 4 processor platform from
TI has been designed with this philosophy to
make customer development faster and easier
by removing any roadblocks before the actual
handset design starts.
platform for maximum performance and efficiency at the chip, software and system level.
Pre-integrated OMAP 4 applications software, including everything up to the applications
layer, provides high optimization and faster time to market. By designing the OMAP 4
platform to the most complex use case, TI has made HD multimedia as well as a host of
other high-performance applications achievable.
Designing for bandwidth
The next generation of mobile devices will be expected to deliver full 1080p high-definition
(HD) video playback at 30 frames per second (fps) with high-fidelity audio in-sync with the
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video. Without enough bandwidth, not only would the audio be out of sync with the video, but the handset
would also not be able to deliver the full 30 fps and you might only get 22 fps, at which point the human
eye can detect the choppiness of the video. Additionally, if the system does not have enough bandwidth,
applications such as Internet browsing will not deliver the PC-like experience users expect.
TI has designed the OMAP 4 platform to meet the bandwidth requirements of even the most complex use
cases. The OMAP 4 platform includes a dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 MPCore symmetric multiprocessing
(SMP) core to deliver higher peak computing performance than unicore solutions. With more than sufficient
processing bandwidth for the most complex case, the OMAP 4 platform is also able to provide efficiency
as well as flexibility to scale down to the simplest task.
In order to take advantage of this increase in processing bandwidth, higher bandwidth memory interfacing
is required. The OMAP 4 platform integrates a 2-channel Low-Power Double Data Serial Communication Rate
2 (LPDDR2) memory interface, allowing 1080p video performance with concurrent system activity. A powerful
DRAM Memory Manager (DMM) provides bandwidth optimization by providing virtual memory manage-
ment for all the multimedia accelerators on the OMAP 4 platform as well as providing memory interleaving
management.
Other improvements in the individual OMAP 4 subsystems help to deliver outstanding bandwidth.
The video subsystem uses several bandwidth reduction techniques as well as incorporating its own on-chip
high-bandwidth shared L2 memory. Some of the bandwidth reduction techniques include:
• Compression of the motion estimation search window luma data
• Motion estimation search window management
• Motion compensation bounding box to combine loads into one larger load
• Increased internal shared L2 buffer to reduce data traffic to DDR

An integrated graphics accelerator from Imagination Technologies, delivers outstanding 3D graphics on the
OMAP 4 platform. The POWERVR™ SGX540, core is designed for mobile use and with its unique, tile-based,
deferred rendering shading architecture is able to reduce memory bandwidth while doubling throughput of the
shader and the iteration/texture pipe to allow immersive user interfaces, advanced gaming and rich 3D mapping
applications at 4x sustained performance compared to their previous core. Also included is a 128-bit internal
memory bus to meet the higher system bandwidth requirements and increased processing performance.
The display subsystem of the OMAP 4 platform also includes an upgraded 128-bit OCP system interface to
support the bandwidth increase.
A final example of the OMAP 4 platform’s design for bandwidth is in the imaging subsystem. Delivering
digital SLR-like performance with up to 20 megapixels at one second shot-to-shot delay requires a signifi-
cant amount of processing bandwidth. The OMAP 4 platform’s Image Signal Processor (ISP) provides fine
bandwidth control for memory to memory operation to give 200-megapixels/second throughput at 200 MHz.
A high-performance DMA engine further improves the ISP bandwidth.
All of these improvements together help to increase the OMAP 4 system performance and bandwidth to
deliver the applications that users want at the performance level they demand.

Designing for the Use Case: Using the OMAP™ 4 platform to overcome the challenges with integrating multiple applications February 2009

Designing for
seamless transitions
Designing for the Use Case: Using the OMAP™ 4 platform to overcome the challenges with integrating multiple applications
Texas Instruments 3
Mobile handset users expect applications on their devices to run smoothly and with no delay when
switching between applications. For example, if you are watching a video over WLAN and a call comes in,
you expect to be able to take the call over your Bluetooth headset without any delay. If you are using the
handset’s built in camera, you expect to be able to take a picture and be able to take the next picture quickly,
without having to wait for the handset to catch-up. Latency issues can be reduced with high-performance
processors and high system bandwidth.
The OMAP 4 platform from TI incorporates a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 SMP processor to deliver the
highest performance, with a 150 percent increase in performance over previous ARM Cortex-A8 processors.
Designers have re-architected the memory controller subsystem and bus system to enable more efficient
multithreading for SMP applications. This new OMAP 4 platform enables better user experiences
with smoother, more responsive UI’s, faster handset startup, quicker application launch time and seamless
multi-tasking across applications.
TI has taken other steps to ensure high performance and low latency on the OMAP 4 platform, including
a hardwired video accelerator for mainstream video codecs that is able to deliver 1080p, 30 fps encode/
decode for multiple standards. The high-speed ISP reduces shot-to-shot delay while still delivering up to
20-megapixel quality shots with a dedicated CPU for imaging applications.
By integrating an improved SDRAM controller, the OMAP 4 platform improves performance and therefore
latency with techniques such as:
• Re-ordering commands for maximize overall memory usage
• Delayed writes to limit read-to-write or write-to-read transitions
• Support for single request/multiple data transactions on the OCP interface to effectively increase the
look- ahead FIFO depth and allow more effective re-ordering of commands
A very important step that TI has taken to improve latency is the optimization and pre-integration of
software up to the application level. This helps to reduce latencies early in the design process for maximum
performance and system-level optimization to deliver low-latency applications to end users.
With the integration of more and more applications onto a single platform, the complexity of seamless
transition has become a critical design issue. For example, when a user is watching a video streaming over
WLAN and listening to it over Bluetooth headphones, and receives a phone call, It is essential that the user
be able to pause the movie, answer the call, and be able to return seamlessly to the movie without an delay,
or experience dropped video frames or loss of sync of the audio and video.
The challenge is having multiple applications running at the same time and sharing resources without
impacting responsiveness or in the worst case shutting down the system. It is important to manage the
resources that are shared by the multiple cores on the device.
There are three major aspects to consider for resource sharing: bandwidth, processor load, and memory.
Each of the high-performance use cases needs guaranteed headroom to enable the launching of another
February 2009
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application simultaneously. When starting an application you are not running at peak performance
and need to ensure the handover of resources does not result in a degradation in performance that is
perceptible by the user.
To combat these transition issues between applications issues, TI has pre-integrated operating system
(OS) and multimedia applications software to test the interaction of the IC and the HLOS to ensure that
seamless transitions are possible. This complex testing methodology ensures that issues have been
found and corrected before going into the customer’s design. This highly optimized software increases
the system throughput and responsiveness, while ensuring that all applications can operate simultaneously
with no issues.

Designing The power use case for next-generation phones continues to become more extensive as more powerful
for power applications are added onto the devices. Users expect an all day Internet experience on a single charge or to
have over 100+ hours of audio playback in airplane mode. All of these applications require more advanced
power management technologies to deliver the performance users want.
The OMAP 4 platform integrates SmartReflex™ 2 technologies from TI for advanced power management
and optimized performance. SmartReflex 2 technology delivers hardware and software support for the most
advanced power management techniques, including Dynamic Voltage & Frequency Scaling (DVFS), Adaptive
Voltage Scaling (AVS), Dynamic Power Switching (DPS), Static Leak Management (SLM) and Adaptive
Body Bias (ABB).
DVFS dynamically adjusts the voltage and frequency to adapt to the performance needed in the
system for that particular application. With independent DVFS support on multiple voltage domains,
the OMAP 4 platform is able to run at the most adequate voltage and frequency, minimizing power
consumption while allowing the core domain to be kept at a fixed frequency or scaled down for the
very low power use cases.
AVS maintains high performance while minimizing voltage with a complete hardware closed loop
that continuously adapts the domain voltage based on the silicon process and temperature conditions.
AVS ensures that every voltage domain will always run at the minimum possible voltage at every
operating/performance point (OPP).
DPS and SLM both work to reduce the leakage power on a silicon chip. DPS dynamically switches
between power modes based on system activity while SLM allows the lowest standby power mode
compatible with the required system responsiveness to reduce leakage power. These two technologies
help to solve the chip-level leakage power challenge that is exacerbated at smaller, deep-submicron
process geometries, like the 45-nm process of the OMAP 4 platform.

Designing for the Use Case: Using the OMAP™ 4 platform to overcome the challenges with integrating multiple applications February 2009
 Texas Instruments 5

ABB can be broken down into two different techniques, Forward Body Bias (FBB) for up to a 15 percent
performance boost of slow devices and Reverse Body Bias (RBB) for leakage reduction of fast devices by as
much as 40 percent. FBB and RBB enable small modifications in the transistor threshold voltages after
the device has been manufactured and is in operation to gain performance and reduce leakage.
All of these advanced power management techniques, along with pre-integrated interface, OS and
multimedia applications software ensures that every power optimization has been made that is available
on the OMAP 4 platform.

Successfully In order to design successful handsets in the future, OEMs must take into account very complex use cases.
designed for the This requires breaking down each use case into system-level components and optimizing each component
complex use case as well as the overall system. While there are multiple use cases, there are four key design challenges to
overcome: bandwidth, latency, seamless transitions and power. Handsets designed without consideration of
these challenges will fail to meet the demands of next-generation handset design.
TI has designed the OMAP 4 platform at the chip, software and system level to address these challenges
and to meet the needs of next-generation handsets. With power and performance optimization already
incorporated in the OMAP 4 platform, customers are free to design the next generation of applications and
handsets.

For more information www.ti.com/wireless

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