Fujitsu Semiconductor Asia Pte Ltd (FSAL) announced the forthcoming release of six products in the MB91590 series of system controllers for automotive dashboards (instrument clusters using colour displays) and center consoles (onboard information displays).

The new products will start becoming available in late September 2010. This series of vehicle-system LSI devices integrates the FR81S, a high-performance CPU core that has an established achievement as the vehicle microcontroller (system controller), with a graphics-display controller and functions for video capture and communications.

The company also announced the forthcoming release of two products in the MB91570 series of microcontrollers for segment-display dashboard panels. These products will start becoming available in late December 2010.

As advanced vehicle electronics are being deployed as new control systems for hybrid and electric vehicles, the trend towards higher performance and increasing integration of functionality in these control units is expected to continue. These systems require high-performance system controllers that can respond to information coming from a variety of peripheral components in real time and that can display this information using rich graphics. In addition, the need to display video is also expected to grow, as onboard cameras are increasingly being used for improved safety.
 
To meet these needs in applications for dashboards and other human-machine interface systems in automotives, Fujitsu Semiconductor is launching six products in the MB91590 series, all of which are single-chip system controllers that integrate the FR81S, a world-class, high-performance CPU core, with a graphics-display controller that has outstanding sprite functions, video capture to input from exterior video signals, and communications functions, including CAN and LIN. The company will also launch two products in the MB01570 series for dashboards using segment liquid-crystal displays.

To ensure that developers can work these products into their designs with minimum difficulty, Fujitsu Semiconductor is offering a starter kit, sample programs, a graphic-design tool that allows designers to try out screen designs visually, and a graphics library.