PortalPlayer

PortalPlayer, Inc.

Company type	Public (until acquisition)
Industry	Semiconductor
Founded	1999
Headquarters	Santa Clara , United States
Products	System-on-a-chip solutions for personal media players
Parent	Nvidia Corporation (since 2007)

PortalPlayer, Inc., established in 1999, operated as a fabless semiconductor firm specializing in system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions, including semiconductors, firmware, and software tailored for personal media players. The company concentrated on designing semiconductors and developing firmware while contracting out manufacturing to third-party foundries.

PortalPlayer rose to prominence through its collaboration with Apple on the original iPod's creation. It became a publicly traded company in November 2004, listed on NASDAQ under the symbol PLAY. Apple represented 90% of PortalPlayer’s sales, a dependency that posed risks when Apple later transitioned to alternative media processor suppliers.

On January 5, 2007, Nvidia Corporation completed the acquisition of PortalPlayer for an estimated $357 million.

PortalPlayer 5002

This SoC incorporates two ARM7TDMI cores sharing SRAM divided into three 32KB banks. Although the memory controller contained errata that impaired data cache efficiency, the chip provided rapid SRAM access. Due to the ARM7TDMI’s lack of inherent cache coherency, custom circuitry was implemented to maintain SRAM coherency.

Applications include:

• iPod: First three generations

PortalPlayer 5003

A system-on-chip equipped with dual ARM7 CPUs running up to 90 MHz. This version resolves the cache issues found in the 5002, resulting in significantly improved DRAM throughput.

Utilized by:

• Rio Karma

PortalPlayer 5020

This SoC features two ARM CPU cores operating at 75 MHz and expands SRAM to four banks totaling 128KB via a crossbar switch.

Deployed in:

• iPod: Fourth generation, iPod Photo, and initial iPod Mini
• Philips HDD100/120 (reportedly)
• Tatung Elio M310
• Virgin player 5GB
• MSI Megaplayer 540 (marketed as Medion MD81034 by ALDI in Germany)
• iriver H10 (5GB, 6GB, and 20GB variants)
• Edirol R-1 (unconfirmed)
• M-AUDIO Microtrack version 1
• Olympus m:robe MR-100

PortalPlayer 5021C-TDF

Found in:

• iPod: First generation iPod Nano and fifth generation iPod with video capability

PortalPlayer 5022

Offers consistent SRAM access speeds without segmenting the memory.

Implemented in:

• iPod: Second generation iPod Mini
• Philips GoGear HDD1630/HDD6320/HDD6330 models (paired with Wolfson WM8731L codec)

PortalPlayer 5024

An enhanced PP5022 integrating an Austria Microsystems AS3514 DAC alongside a power management unit.

Used by:

• Sandisk Sansa e200 series
• Philips GoGear SA9200

PortalPlayer APX

This application processor lineup powers devices such as:

• Microsoft Zune HD
• Latest NVIDIA Tegra mobile processors

External links

• PortalPlayer Wiki at Rockbox (Open Source firmware)
• mi4 file format utilized by most PortalPlayer models excluding iPods