OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) is a family of image/video processors that was developed by Texas Instruments. They are proprietary system on chips (SoCs) for portable and mobile multimedia applications. OMAP devices generally include a general-purpose ARM architecture processor core plus one or more specialized co-processors. Earlier OMAP variants commonly featured a variant of the Texas Instruments TMS320 series digital signal processor. The platform was created after December 12, 2002, as STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments jointly announced an initiative for Open Mobile Application Processor Interfaces (OMAPI) intended to be used with 2.5 and 3G mobile phones, that were going to be produced during 2003. (This was later merged into a larger initiative and renamed the MIPI Alliance.) The OMAP was Texas Instruments' implementation of this standard. (The STMicroelectronics implementation was named Nomadik.) OMAP enjoyed some success in the smartphone and tablet market until 2011 when it lost ground to Qualcomm Snapdragon. On September 26, 2012, Texas Instruments announced that they would wind down their operations in smartphone and tablet oriented chips and focus on embedded platforms instead. On November 14, 2012, Texas Instruments announced they would cut 1,700 jobs due to their shift from mobile to embedded platforms. The last OMAP5 chips were released in Q2 2013.
OMAP family
The OMAP family consists of three product groups classified by performance and intended application:
high-performance applications processors basic multimedia applications processors integrated modem and applications processors Further, two main distribution channels exist, and not all parts are available in both channels. The genesis of the OMAP product line is from partnership with cell phone vendors, and the main distribution channel involves sales directly to such wireless handset vendors. Parts developed to suit evolving cell phone requirements are flexible and powerful enough to support sales through less specialized catalog channels; some OMAP 1 parts, and many OMAP 3 parts, have catalog versions with different sales and support models. Parts that are obsolete from the perspective of handset vendors may still be needed to support products developed using catalog parts and distributor-based inventory management.
High-performance applications processors These are parts originally intended for use as application processors in smartphones, with processors powerful enough to run significant operating systems (such as Linux, FreeBSD, Android or Symbian), support connectivity to personal computers, and support various audio and video applications.
OMAP 1 The OMAP 1 family started with a TI-enhanced ARM925 core (ARM925T), and then changed to a standard ARM926 core. It included many variants, most easily distinguished according to manufacturing technology (130 nm except for the OMAP171x series), CPU, peripheral set, and distribution channel (direct to large handset vendors, or through catalog-based distributors). In March 2009, the OMAP1710 family chips are still available to handset vendors. Products using OMAP 1 processors include hundreds of cell phone models, Palm PDAs, and the Nokia 770 Internet tablets.
OMAP1510 – 168 MHz ARM925T (TI-enhanced) + C55x DSP OMAP310/311 – 126 MHz ARM925T (TI-enhanced), no DSP OMAP161x – 204 MHz ARM926EJ-S + C55x DSP, 130 nm technology OMAP162x – 204 MHz ARM926EJ-S + C55x DSP + 2 MB internal SRAM, 130 nm technology OMAP171x – 220 MHz ARM926EJ-S + C55x DSP, low-voltage 90 nm technology OMAP5910 – catalog availability version of OMAP 1510 OMAP5912 – catalog availability version of OMAP1621 (or OMAP1611b in older versions)
OMAP 2 These parts were only marketed to handset vendors. Products using these include both Internet tablets and mobile phones:
OMAP 3 The 3rd generation OMAP, the OMAP 3 is broken into 3 distinct groups: the OMAP34x, the OMAP35x, and the OMAP36x. OMAP34x and OMAP36x are distributed directly to large handset (such as cell phone) manufacturers. OMAP35x is a variant of OMAP34x intended for catalog distribution channels. The OMAP36x is a 45 nm version of the 65 nm OMAP34x with higher clock speed. The OMAP 3611 found in devices like the Bookeen's Cybook Odyssey is a licensed crippled version of the OMAP 3621, both are the same silicon (as marking are the same) but officially the 3611 was sold to be only able to drive e-Ink screen and does not have access to IVA & DSP. The video technology in the higher end OMAP 3 parts is derived in part from the DaVinci product line, which first packaged higher end C64x+ DSPs and image processing controllers with ARM9 processors last seen in the older OMAP 1 generation or ARM Cortex-A8. Not highlighted in the list below is that each OMAP 3 SoC has an "Image, Video, Audio" (IVA2) accelerator. These units do not all have the same capabilities. Most devices support 12 megapixel camera images, though some support 5 or 3 megapixels. Some support HD imaging.
OMAP 4
The OMAP 4 line consists of the OMAP 4430, OMAP 4460 (formerly named 4440), and OMAP 4470. The 4th generation OMAPs have a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU with two ARM Cortex-M3 cores, as part of the "Ducati" sub-system for off-loading low-level tasks. The OMAP 4430 was the SoC used in Google Glass. OMAP 4 uses ARM Cortex-A9's with ARM's SIMD engine (Media Processing Engine, aka NEON) which in some cases may have a significant performance advantage over Nvidia Tegra 2's ARM Cortex-A9s with non-vector floating point units. It also uses a dual-channel LPDDR2 memory controller compared to Nvidia Tegra 2's single-channel memory controller. All OMAP 4 processors come with an IVA3 multimedia hardware accelerator with a programmable DSP that enables 1080p Full HD and multi-standard video encoding and decoding. The 4430 and 4460 use a PowerVR SGX540 graphics processing unit (GPU). The 4430's GPU runs at a clock frequency of 304 Mhz, and the 4460's GPU runs at 384 MHz. The 4470 has a PowerVR SGX544 GPU that supports DirectX 9 that enables it for use in Windows 8. It also has a dedicated 2D graphics core for increased power efficiency up to 50-90%.
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