Freescale Semiconductor, the world's third largest chip maker and embedded systems provider, Wednesday launched its low-cost device for digital media servers deployed in the small-office/home-office (SOHO) segment.

The advanced processor, code-named MPC8313E, has been designed, developed and validated at the company's Indian chip design centre at Noida near Delhi.

"The integrated device, bundled with Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 high speed interconnect and advanced power management, makes an ideal platform for a host of consumer applications, including residential gateways, network access storage devices and printers," said Freescale product marketing head Sunil S. Kaul.

To be shipped to electronic equipment manufacturers and application developers from the second quarter of 2007 at $15 for 10,000 chips, the made-in-India processor comes with integrated security for piracy protection, quality service and user-friendly features.

"The cost-effective device enables deployment of high-speed peripherals at affordable price point and provides a 32-bit double data rate memory controller, a 32-bit peripheral component interconnect controller, a 16-bit local bus and four direct memory access channels," Kaul said at the product's worldwide launch.

Powered by the company's e300 core based on power architecture technology, the processor runs at a speed of 300MHz and delivers up to 700 MIPS (million instructions per second) for deploying feature-rich applications and peripherals.

"The processor also supports applications such as line card controller, broadband router, intelligent NIC, integrated access devices and 802.11 wireless LAN access points," Freescale digital systems division director Ravinder Jagannath pointed out.

According to Freescale India director Ganesh Guruswamy, rapid growth of personal and premium content has necessitated deployment of interactive multimedia services at homes.

"India will be one of the major markets for this device, thanks to the increasing penetration of broadband in the SOHO segment for high-speed connectivity and inter-operability," Guruswamy said.

In addition, the product can be used for security, lighting, climate control and a host of inter-operable services. In the entertainment segment, it opens up plethora of opportunities to facilitate online gaming, video streaming, music downloads from iPod or iTunes.