THE faster processor from chip builder Freescale could help cut down the price of components for e-readers, paving a approach to the $150 device after this year.

Freescale’s ultimate system-on-chip, called the i.MX508, integrates an ARM Cortex A8 processor with a display controller from E Ink. It will have twice the opening during the significantly reduce price, Freescale claims.

“This is the initial chip that has been written only for e-readers,” says Glen Burchers, executive of selling at Freescale. “Earlier, we had general-purpose processors being used in e-readers so they were not utterly optimized.”

From a Excite to the Sony Reader, Freescale’s chips power many e-readers today. A chipmaker claims to have scarcely 90 percent of a market share between a burgeoning e-reader marketplace. Investigate firm Forrester estimates 3 million e-readers were sole last year as well as sales have been approaching to double this year.

But the tall price of e-readers has kept many consumers from rushing to stores to get a device. An Amazon Excite costs $260, that is what most such readers price. The cheapest e-reader currently upon the market, from Sony, is still $200. And that doesn’t embody a cost of shopping e-books. An additional tying cause has been kludgy user interfaces as well as displays which are delayed to turn from asingle page to a subsequent, which has incited off alittle intensity users.

Freescale’s ultimate chip has an ARM core running during 800MHz as well as can describe electronic ink pages during almost twice a speed of earlier e-reader processors, the association says. This results in faster page turns as well as the more poignant feel to a device.

“Today page flips on the Excite have been in the range of 1.5 to 2 seconds, while a Indentation That uses a processor from Samsung) it can take up to 3 seconds for the page turn,” Burchers says. “With the brandnew processors, that can be cut down to about half a second.”

In Wired’s contrast, page turns upon the current-model Kindle took about half the second whilst a Nook took about asingle second.

A increasing estimate capacity also gives e-reader makers larger computing energy so they can add improved hold capacity as well as run some-more apps upon a device, says Freescale.

For consumers, all this could come with alittle cost assets. Freescale’s chip could revoke the overall price of materials since a chip itself will cost about $10 when systematic in large volumes (greater than 250,000 units). Altogether, this could reduce a cost of an e-reader by during slightest $30-$50. A most costly component in an e-reader, however, stays a E Ink black-and-white display.

E-readers based on the brandnew Freescale processor are expected to be available in the third quarter of a year.