Document Number: IMX50CEC
Freescale Semiconductor
Rev. 7, 10/2013
Data Sheet: Technical Data
MCIMX50
Package Information
Plastic Package
i.MX50 Applications
Case 416 MAPBGA 13 x 13 mm, 0.5 mm pitch
Case 416 PoPBGA 13 x 13 mm, 0.5 mm pitch
Processors for Case 400 MAPBGA 17 x 17 mm, 0.8 mm pitch
Consumer Products
Ordering Information
See Table 1 on page 7 for ordering information.
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 Introduction
1.1. Product Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2. Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The i.MX50 applications processors are
1.3. Ordering Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4. Part Number Feature Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
multimedia-focused products offering high-performance
1.5. Package Feature Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
processing optimized for lowest power consumption.
2. Architectural Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The i.MX50 processors are Freescale Energy Efficiency 2.1. Block Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3. Modules List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Solutions products.
3.1. Special Signal Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4. Electrical Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The i.MX50 is optimized for portable multimedia
4.1. Chip-Level Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
applications and features Freescales advanced 4.2. Supply Power-Up/Power-Down Requirements and
Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
implementation of the ARM Cortex-A8 core, which
4.3. I/O DC Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
operates at speeds as high as 1 GHz. The i.MX50
4.4. Output Buffer Impedance Characteristics . . . . . . 37
4.5. I/O AC Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
provides a powerful display architecture, including a 2D
4.6. System Modules Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and Pixel Processing
4.7. External Interface Module (EIM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Pipeline (ePXP). Additionally, the i.MX50 includes a 4.8. DRAM Timing Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.9. External Peripheral Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
complete integration of the electrophoretic display
5. Package Information and Contact Assignments . . . . . 101
function. The i.MX50 supports DDR2, LPDDR2, and
5.1. 13 x 13 mm, 0.5 mm Pitch, 416 Pin MAPBGA Package
Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
LPDDR1 DRAM at clock rate up to 266 MHz to enable
5.2. 13 x 13 mm, 0.5 mm Pitch, 416 Pin PoPBGA Package
a range of performance and power trade-offs.
Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.3. 17 x 17 mm, 0.8 mm Pitch, 400 Pin MAPBGA Package
The flexibility of the i.MX50 architecture allows it to be
Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
used in a variety of applications. As the heart of the 5.4. Signal Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
6. Revision History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Freescale reserves the right to change the detail specifications as may be required
to permit improvements in the design of its products.
20112013 Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. All rights reserved.Introduction
application chipset, the i.MX50 provides a rich set of interfaces for connecting peripherals, such as
WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS, and displays.
1.1 Product Overview
The i.MX50 is designed to enable high-tier portable applications by satisfying the performance
requirements of advanced operating systems and applications.
1.1.1 Dynamic Performance Scaling
Freescales dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) allows the device to run at much lower voltage
and frequency with ample processing capacity for tasks, such as audio decode, resulting in significant
power reduction.
1.1.2 Multimedia Processing Powerhouse
The multimedia performance of the i.MX50 processor ARM Cortex-A8 core is boosted by a multi-level
cache system, a NEON coprocessor with SIMD media processing architecture and 32-bit
single-precision floating point support, and two vector floating point coprocessors. The system is further
enhanced by a programmable smart DMA (SDMA) controller.
1.1.3 Powerful Display System
The i.MX50 includes support for both standard LCD displays as well as electrophoretic displays (e-paper).
The display subsystem consists of the following modules:
Electrophoretic Display Controller (EPDC) (i.MX508 only)
The EPDC is a feature-rich, low power, and high-performance direct-drive active matrix EPD
TM
controller. It is specifically designed to drive E-INK EPD panels, supporting a wide variety of
TFT architectures. The goal of the EPDC is to provide an efficient SoC integration of this
functionality for e-paper applications, allowing a significant bill of materials cost savings over an
external solution while reaching much higher levels of performance and lower power. The EPDC
module is defined in the context of an optimized hardware/software partitioning and works in
conjunction with the ePXP (see Section 1.1.4, Graphics Accelerators).
Enhanced LCD Controller Interface (eLCDIF)
The eLCDIF is a high-performance LCD controller interface that supports a rich set of modes and
allows interoperability with a wide variety of LCD panels, including DOTCK/RGB and smart
panels. The module also supports synchronous operation with the ePXP to allow the processed
frames to be passed from the ePXP to the eLCDIF through an on-chip SRAM buffer. The eLCDIF
can support up to 32-bit interfaces.
1.1.4 Graphics Accelerators
Integrated graphics accelerators offload processing from the ARM processor, enabling high performance
graphic applications at minimum power.
i.MX50 Applications Processors for Consumer Products, Rev. 7
2 Freescale Semiconductor