 Renesas Technologies America has announced the SH7785, a 32-bit microprocessor with a 600MHz maximum operating capacity that will open up a number of exciting possibilities because of its speed. The device features a fancy SH-4A superscalar CPU core with on-chip cache and RAM to deliver 1 GIPS (giga instructions per second) performance.
 It also has a floating-point processing unit that can achieve 4.2 GFLOPS (giga floating-point operations per second). That will speed up the generation of 3D graphics. Other on-chip peripherals include a direct memory access controller, interrupt controller, watchdog timer, and various interfaces.
 That all sounds pretty confusing, but it’s the applications that this can make possible that are exciting. For example, the company suggests that the SH7785 will make it possible to have a 3D navigation system that is visible on your windshield as you drive. Without looking down you would be able to see, in three-dimensional glory, where you are and what is coming up. That would require a tremendous amount of processing power and the SH7785 is up to the challenge.
Amazingly, the whole processor is only 19mm x 19mm, though it has 436 pins. Samples will be available for manufacturers in May, so it will be a while before we see it in action.
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