NetLogic Microsystems and TSMC Collaborate on 28nm Process Technology

Includes analogue capability for high speed interfaces 

Network processor developer NetLogic Microsystems  is working with leading foundry TSMC to extend their existing collaboration to include TSMC’s NEXSYS 28HP (28nm high performance) semiconductor process node. This will be used for NetLogic’s next-generation knowledge-based processors, multi-core processors and 10/40/100Gigabit PHY.
As an early development partner, NetLogic is using TSMC’s 28nm node to raise networking infrastructure performance and significantly differentiating its product line from the competition.In June 2009 Netlogic bought RMI (Raza Microsystems) to add a range of high performance multicore network processors to its range. 
NetLogic has launched advanced product development for multiple industry-leading product lines on the TSMC 28nm node. The 28HP process offers significant speed, and power efficiency advantages over previous process nodes. In addition, NetLogic Microsystems is developing a suite of custom high-performance circuits optimized around TSMC’s 28nm node, including high-speed serial interface technology, analogue and clocking circuitry, core processing elements and other standard cells, as well as refining the design and tape-out flow for this advanced node.
“By being a consistent early adopter across four generations of process technology, NetLogic Microsystems has consistently provided very high performance and low power products for mission-critical network infrastructure systems,” said Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC North America. “We welcome the extension of our close relationship to include NetLogic Microsystems’ role as an 28nm early technology adopter.”
“We are proud to have been one of the early partners for TSMC in 80nm, 55nm, 40nm and now 28nm for our best-in-class knowledge-based processors, multi-core processors and 10/40/100 Gigabit PHY product families,” said Ron Jankov, president and CEO at NetLogic Microsystems. “By combining the superior design and architecture of our products with TSMC’s proven leadership and track record in advanced manufacturing technologies, we are able to deliver highly innovative products with unprecedented performance, scalability and energy efficiency to our customers.”
NetLogic Microsystems offers high-performance multi-core, multi-threaded processors, knowledge-based processors, content processors, and high-speed 10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet PHY solutions. These market-leading products are designed into high-performance systems such as switches, routers, wireless base stations, security appliances, networked storage appliances and service gateways to significantly enhance the performance and functionality of next-generation 3G/4G mobile wireless infrastructure, data center, enterprise, metro Ethernet, edge and core infrastructure networks.

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AMD brings DDR3 and quadcore to embedded with two new platforms

Brings DDR3 high speed memory, quad core processors and 1080p HD video into embedded.
AMD has launched two new platforms that bring key functions from the desktop to the embedded market but with long term support and fanless operation.
The compact ASB2 platform and the high-performance AM3 platform offer combinations of power and performance with up to 74% (apparently, rather than 75%) improvement in performance-per-watt over previous generations. The embedded platforms consist of chipset and graphics solutions along with high-performance CPUs as low as 8W.
“The barriers to widespread adoption of x86 in the broad embedded market have traditionally been a combination of power, price and the physical footprint of the silicon,” said Buddy Broeker, director of the Embedded Solutions Division at AMD. “AMD’s embedded solutions have been steadily driving down those barriers while adding enterprise-class performance and features that may not have been readily available to designers in the past.

New Platform Features

• Faster memory with support for 2 channels DDR3
• Improved I/O for high-throughput and real-time applications with available HyperTransport 3.0 technology
• ECC for high-reliability applications like SMB/SOHO storage systems
• Multiple CPU options that offer wide choice of performance and power
  
  
  
  • Power envelopes in 8, 12, 15, 25, 45, and 65 watts TDP
  • Single-, dual- and quad-core
  • Up to 2.8 GHz
• AMD 785E chipset with support for PCI Express 2.0
• New ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics with DirectX 10.1, full 1080p display resolution support, HDMI, and power-savings capability with options to support multiple displays
• Socket AM3 package, compatible with socket AM2 when using DDR2 memory for increased design flexibility and scalability
• Lidless BGA package offers low-cost to manufacture, high reliability, and low z-height for small form factors and fan-less designs

 

Related AMD articles

• AMD's Fastest Dual Core Processor is $99 [Amd] (gizmodo.com)
• AMD claims no premium for four-way chips (go.theregister.com)
• AMD expands Phenom and Athlon processor families (newstatesman.com)
• AMD announces Turbo CORE for upcoming desktop CPUs (arstechnica.com)
• AMD unveils ATI Radeon E4690 Mobile PCI Express module (ubergizmo.com)
• AMD's new AMD 890GX HD chipset announced, reviewed, lauded (engadget.com)

Intel shows giant holographic touchscreen concept and standard

Intel has demonstrated a new 7-foot-6-inch multi-user, multi-touch 'Intelligent Digital Signage' concept system in New York. Intel said the prototype device could change the way people interact with digital signage technology in environments such as stores, airports, banks and hotels.

The demonstration emulates a virtual brick-and-mortar store setting where customers may use the multi-touch holographic screen to explore merchandise, find out about promotions, submit feedback on products, read customer reviews, view past purchasing histories and share what they have discovered with their friends via social media and mobile phone integration.
Multiple consumers can use this side-by-side window display simultaneously to explore augmented reality-enabled maps of each floor of the store, on which retailers can superimpose images such as coupons and sales promotions next to the product visualizations on the glass, improving the customer's shopping experience.

"As stores seek more competitive advantages over online retailers, digital signage has become a valuable technology for dispersing targeted and interactive content to shoppers," said Joe Jensen, general manager, Intel Embedded Computing Division. "We therefore designed the Intel Intelligent Digital Signage Concept to show that retailers can engage and interact with consumers in a more personal and compelling manner through new usage models such as augmented reality and interactive product explorations, which in turn could yield an increase in revenue and customer loyalty."

More Insight for Advertisers
Intel's digital signage concept also brings a new opportunity for advertisers through the use of anonymous video analytics. As a viewer looks at the system screen, the built-in camera technology analyzes data such as gender and age, audience composition, time-of-day and other criteria, which enable the system to display tailored content and graphics based on estimated demographics. The system anonymously sends audience information to advertisers who can use that information to understand the type of content and messages that are most popular with viewers. This, in turn, helps advertisers target their advertising to maximize the impact on the audience
Traditionally, retail and digital signage application development has been fraught with difficulty as system development requires the use of many different platforms. To address the need for a more streamlined solution, Intel also announced a strategic relationship with Microsoft to develop an open-standards validated platform for digital signage applications.
"With the Windows Embedded and Intel platform, we will provide industries such as the digital signage market with scalable and interoperable solutions that enable applications with rich graphics and interactive capabilities," said Kevin Dallas, general manager, Windows Embedded Business Unit Microsoft. "With this solution, we look forward to delivering endless possibilities to the digital signage industry and beyond."
The media player platform, integrated in Intel's concept, is running on the recently released Intel Core i7 processor with Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 2011 platform optimized for digital signage applications. The jointly developed platform is expected to be available in the second quarter of 2010.

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Step forward for multicore Linux

CriticalBlue and MontaVista Partner to Expand Multicore Software Development

CriticalBlue, the Edinburgh-based pioneer of embedded multicore software analysis, exploration and verification tools, has joined the MontaVista partner program and will make their Prism product available on MontaVista Linux 6 and Montavista Linux Carrier Grade Edition products.
This announcement continues the broadening of Prism integrations with key players in the multicore software development eco-system by adding support for an industrial strength, commercial quality Linux. Prism is an award-winning embedded multicore programming system which allows software engineers to easily asses and realize the full potential of multicore processors without significant change to their development flow. It analyzes the behavior of code running on either hardware development boards or simulators. It allows engineers to take their existing sequential code, and without making any changes, explore and analyze opportunities for concurrency. Having identified the optimal parallelization strategy in this way, the developer will implement parallel structures, and use Prism again to verify efficient and thread-safe operations.
MontaVista Linux is the first commercial Linux provider to be supported by Prism. The Prism Eclipse plug-in will be integrated into the MontaVista DevRocket integrated development environment (IDE), providing the most advanced embedded Linux development environment for multicore software on the market. MontaVista customers will now be able to quickly analyze the potential benefit of new, high-performance, multicore software platforms for their existing application code and develop new code and quickly tune it for operation on multicore processors, all within a single MontaVista DevRocket environment, and all in the familiar Eclipse framework.
Prism is available today for ARM and MIPS cores with several other leading multicore processor architectures coming in Q1 2010.

“Developers need to analyze their real world applications running on commercial Linux platforms like MontaVista Linux using common frameworks like Eclipse,” said David Stewart, CEO, CriticalBlue. “By partnering with MontaVista, and integrating with the MontaVista DevRocket IDE, Prism will support the broadest range of platforms on a commercial quality Linux, allowing our joint customers a way to rapidly ensure safe and timely migration of their software onto multicore platforms and efficient exploitation of the parallelism inherent within.”

“By combining CriticalBlue’s Prism solution, MontaVista Linux and MontaVista DevRocket, our customers will benefit from the most advanced multicore integrated development environment available for embedded Linux,” said Dan Cauchy, vice president, marketing at MontaVista Software. “This integrated environment will allow developers to quickly analyze, convert and tune sequential code into parallel code and harness the full capabilities of MontaVista Linux running on modern multicore processors.”

VIA chipset for DDR3 all-in-one PCs

Blu-ray playback, DX10.1 graphics and DDR3 memory support



VIA Technologies is set to push the adoption of next generation high speed DDR3 memory in all-in-one and embedded PCs with a new low power chipset.
The VIA VN1000 digital media chipset features the ChromotionHD 2.0 video processor to guarantee smooth playback of the latest Blu-ray titles with superb hardware acceleration of the most demanding H.264, WM9 and VC1 codecs over the latest display technologies, including Display Port and HDMI.
“The VIA VN1000 leverages our optimized VIA Nano 3000 Series processors, creating the most balanced, power-efficient, multimedia-focused desktop platform on the market today,” said Richard Brown, VP International Marketing at VIA. “Supporting the latest system memory, graphics and entertainment standards, the VIA VN1000 takes the VIA processor platform to new heights of power-efficient visual sophistication.”
At the core of the VIA VN1000 lies a DirectX 10.1 graphics engine, a necessary requirement for users who want to enjoy the enhanced features of the Windows 7 desktop environment. The DirectX 10.1 engine means that Windows 7 can employ Microsoft’s advanced Windows Desktop Driver Model 1.1, bringing significant gains in system memory efficiency, overall desktop responsiveness and an improved visual experience compared to WDDM 1.0.
Paired with the new VIA VT8261 south bridge, the VIA VN1000 represents the most power-efficient DX10.1 compliant digital media chipset on the market, consuming up to 12 watts for both north and south bridges, making it a perfect choice for Windows 7 based mini desktop and all-in-one desktop PCs designs.
The VN1000 supports DDR3 system memory at speeds of up to 1066MHz, one x8 lane and four x1 lane PCI Express II expansion slots, up to five PCI slots and a VIA Vinyl HD 8 channel audio codec. An IDE controller, support for up to four S-ATA II drives, SD/MMS/MMC card reader support and 12 USB 2.0 ports are supplemented with support for PS/2, SPI, GPIO and LPC technologies.
The VN1000 Digital Media IGP Chipset is fully compatible with all VIA Nano, VIA C7, VIA C7-M and VIA Eden processors and supports all Microsoft Windows platforms and popular Linux distributions.

Atom moves into automotive

Kontron's Microspace MPCX28: in-vehicle PC with Intel Atom Z530 processor


Kontron has launched its first in-vehicle PC with extended support, based on the Intel Atom Z530 processor and Intel System Controller Hub US15W, with a flexible PC/104 socket for ultra flat and space-saving PC/104 expansion cards. Further options for customization include 2 PCIe Mini Card Slots for custom specific options such as GPS, GSM/UMTS, and WLAN.
Its fanless design, easy expandability and high flexibility make the precision Swiss-engineered Kontron Microspace MPCX28 Box PC a perfect fit for various applications in busses, cars, trucks, and (automated) heavy-duty vehicles used in intralogistics. In cabs and busses it can be used for passenger infotainment, video surveillance, or ticketing systems. Typical truck applications include CAN-based trailer and goods management, GPS navigation combined with communication via GSM, and UMTS/GPRS for fleet management. For vehicles used in intralogistics, the applications range from the control of automated vehicles, to logistics for forklift trucks with WLAN and barcode/RFID interfaces.
Designed to work in the extended temperature range -25 to 70°C, the passively cooled in-vehicle Kontron Box PC is based on the Intel Atom Z530 1.6 GHz processor with 533 MHz FSB and supports up to 1 GB DDR2 RAM. The embedded graphics feature 256MB of memory DirectX 9 3-D and HDTV support with MPEG2 and H.264 decoders to process compressed HD videos to offload CPU usage. To accommodate storage devices, it provides front side slots for a 2.5" SATA HDD or SDD and Compact Flash media. Thanks to the externally-accessible slots, the change of storage media is quick and simple without the use of tools. This makes it particularly easy to swap out the hard drive within seconds to provide new content for, e.g., infotainment applications. The internal PCI/104 and 2x PCIe MiniCard expansion slots allow for various application-specific extensions, such as Dual-CAN, GPS, GSM/UMTS, and WLAN.

Application specific expansions via ultra flat PC/104 extension cards

The Microspace MPCX28 also features a comprehensive set of interfaces to fulfill the demands of nearly all in-vehicle applications. On the front, two USB 2.0 interfaces and 3.5 mm jacks for stereo output and input are accompanied by a SIM slot for mobile communications. On the back, the new in-vehicle PC offers 2 x Gigabit Ethernet, 2 additional USB 2.0 ports, as well as an SATA port to connect additional storage devices. The DVI-I interface transmits analog or digital video signals to external monitors with a resolution of up to 2,048 x 1536. Two DSUB connectors for COM ports (RS232) and a parallel interface for digital I/O, which provide CAN-bus connectivity via an optional PCI/104 expansion card, round off the feature set.
With a wide-range power supply (8 to 58 VDC), the PC can be directly connected to the vehicle's power supply without additional converters. A plug-in power supply for 110/220 VAC is also available. The system supports remote power on/off and can accommodate customer-specific functions such as wake on ring, event wake up or a wake on LAN.
It is scheduled to be available (with CE and E1 certification) in Q1, 2010 and supports Windows XPe/XP/Vista/7, and Linux.

Supercomputing moves into harsh environments

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, part of GE Enterprise Solutions, has developed a rugged processing board with the performance of a supercomputer.
The OpenVPX-compatible GRA111 high performance graphics board is one of the first commercially-available products to feature Nvidia’s newly-announced GT 240 GPU (graphics processing unit) and is also the first rugged implementation of a GPU using Nvidia's CUDA (Compute Unified, Device Architecture). The board is the first result of a relationship with Nvidia announced on October 8th.
The GRA111 is the first member of GE Fanuc’s planned family of CUDA-enabled products that are expected to revolutionize military and aerospace embedded computing by bringing a supercomputing capability to applications and environments that require leading edge processing such as radar, signals intelligence and video surveillance and interpretation. For example, radar systems can run up to 15 times faster.

“The enormous potential of the GPGPU – the general purpose graphics processing unit – with its massively parallel computing architecture is just beginning to become apparent to developers in the military and aerospace field,” said Rob McKeel, Vice President, Embedded Systems at GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms. “What we are announcing today is an exciting first: a new compact, lightweight platform that can deliver exceptional levels of computing performance in demanding applications and challenging environments.”

NVIDIA’s CUDA is a general purpose parallel computing architecture that takes advantage of the parallel compute engine in NVIDIA GPUs to solve many computational problems in a fraction of the time required on a general purpose CPU. It includes the CUDA Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and the parallel compute engine of the GPU.
CUDA has been shown to deliver a 100x increase in speed in a broad range of applications that lend themselves to parallel computing. Early tests at GE Fanuc have shown that military applications can benefit from similar increases in speed. A major prime contractor in the military/aerospace industry has evaluated the CUDA architecture in a radar system, and found that performance improvement of 15x is achievable with minimal reprogramming effort.
The 3U format GRA111 derives much of its performance from the 96 cores, 128-bit memory interface, 1 GByte of DDR3 video memory, 16-lane PCI Express Gen 2 interface, 540MHz graphics clock and 1.3GHz processor clock of the GPU.
Optionally available as an LRM (Line Replaceable Module) in accordance with the VPX-REDI (VITA 48) standard and with a rich set of I/O, the GRA111 can also be applied to many of the most common graphics and video applications. Dual, independent channels mean that it is capable of driving RGB analog component video, digital DVI 1.0, and HDMI standards. In addition, the GRA111’s video input capability allows integration of sensor data using RS170, NTSC or PAL video formats.

European car telematics market to boom

Despite the collapse of the new car market, iSuppli is predicting a boom in telematics equipment for vehicles in Western Europe over the next ten years, and the details of the usage of telematics for each brand make very interesting reading (below), particularly the relatively low levels of telematics used today.
Sales of automotive telematics systems are set to rise by a factor of five during the period from 2008 to 2016 as carmakers offer more telematics-equipped models in the region, reaching 24.8 million systems by 2016, expanding at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 22.5 percent from 4.9 million systems last year.
“Automotive telematics is defined as the integrated use of telecommunications and informatics, allowing the sending and receiving of information,” said Anna Buettner, analyst for automotive electronics at iSuppli. “Telematics can provide a range of benefits to motorists, from notifying an emergency operator when a car’s airbags have been deployed, to reporting vehicle conditions to a remote monitoring center.”
Two major types of telematics solutions are being offered on the market: embedded systems, whose functionality is integrated into the headunit of cars; and mobile-device oriented systems, which use a wireless product like a cell phone to communicate information.
“iSuppli believes that embedded and mobile-device-based telematics systems will continue to coexist in the car market in Western Europe and elsewhere,” Buettner said. “Embedded solutions are suitable for high-end luxury models, while mobile-device-oriented systems can bring telematics services to high-volume, entry-level cars. Regardless of which approach is used, pipes used for communications and delivery of content will become increasingly transparent and will be modified to cater to a vast array of data types.”
GM’s telematics sales in Western Europe are projected to grow to more than 1.4 million units in 2016, rising at a CAGR of more than 41 percent from 210,000 million in 2008. GM currently offers only mobile-device-based telematics systems.
Ford is expected to introduce the Sync system in Europe in 2011. This should increase its mobile-device telematics system shipments in the region to more than 1.7 million systems in 2016, rising at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 31 percent from 190,000 in 2008.
The Japanese brands are not as strong in Europe as they are in North America, so their telematics sales will be much lower in the region. Toyota, which maintains the largest auto sales among the Japanese brands in Western Europe, will have the highest telematics sales there—growing to 990,000 units in 2016, up at a CAGR of 31 percent from 110,000 in 2008. The Japanese leader most likely will bring an embedded solution to the market in the near future.

Domestic telematics

The Top-6 European auto manufacturers collectively control about 64 percent of the Western European auto market.
PSA now has the highest telematics sales in Europe due to its use of both embedded and mobile-device systems. Company sales are forecasted to grow to 3.1 million systems in 2016, up from nearly 620,000 in 2008. Embedded systems accounted for 42 percent of PSA’s 2008 telematics sales.
VW’s telematics sales are projected to grow to nearly 3.2 million units in 2016, increasing at a CAGR of more than 26 percent from 490,000 systems in 2008. While the company’s four brands currently use only mobile device telematics systems, the German OEM is expected to introduce an embedded telematics system in the future.
Fiat’s three brands will sell 2.3 million units in 2016, up at a CAGR of 27 percent from 340,000 in 2008. Embedded systems accounted for about 20 percent of Fiat’s telematics sales in 2008.
Renault has been slow to adopt telematics and has just recently added mobile device systems. Renault’s telematics sales are projected to grow to 1.6 million units in 2016, rising at a CAGR of 30 percent from 190,000 in 2008.
The two main luxury brands in Europe, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, already sell a high percentage of their autos with telematics systems.
BMW uses both embedded and mobile device telematics systems. Company telematics sales will rise to more than 1.3 million units in 2016, up at a CAGR of 16 percent from 390,000 in 2008.
Mercedes-Benz currently sells only mobile-device telematics systems. Sales of Mercedes-Benz telematics systems are forecasted to grow to 1.4 million systems in 2016, expanding at a CAGR of almost 20 percent from 320,000 in 2008. Similar to Toyota/Lexus and Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz also is expected to introduce an embedded telematics solution for its future offerings.

Intel moves into equipment with the Reader

Intel's Digital Health group has launched a handheld device in the US that reads out text. This is one of the few times that Intel has sold consumer equipment under its own brand and is a key step towards the Intel phone. Intel already makes notebooks and netbooks, but these are all labelled by, and sold by, other companies.
The Intel Reader is designed to increase independence for people who have trouble reading standard print. About the size of a paperback book, it converts printed text to digital text, and then reads it aloud to the user. It combines a high-resolution camera with an Intel Atom processor, allowing users to point, shoot and listen to printed text.
The original concept for the Reader came from Ben Foss, a researcher at Intel who was identified in elementary school as one of the estimated 20 percent of people nationwide who have symptoms of dyslexia. Throughout high school, college and graduate school, he had to depend on others to read to him or work through the slow process of getting words off of a page himself. As an adult, much of the content he wanted, from professional journals to pleasure reading, just wasn't available in audio form.

"As someone who is part of this dyslexic community, I am thrilled to be able to help level the playing field for people who, like me, do not have easy access to the printed word," said Foss. "Feelings of loneliness are often the experience of not being able to read easily. We hope to open the doors for people in these communities. The Intel Reader is a tool that can help give people with dyslexia, low-vision, blindness or other reading-based disabilities access to the resources they need to participate and be successful in school, work and life."

Intel says it can assist the estimated 55 million people in the U.S. who have dyslexia or other specific learning disabilities, or have vision problems such as low-vision or blindness, which makes reading printed words difficult or impossible.
The Intel Reader will be available in the United States through select resellers, including CTL, Don Johnston Incorporated, GTSI, Howard Technology Solutions and HumanWare.
When the Intel Reader is used together with the Intel Portable Capture Station, large amounts of text, such as a chapter or an entire book, can be easily captured for reading later. It is available through selected outlets in the US.

"The Intel Digital Health Group's expertise is in finding innovative technology solutions to improve quality of life," said Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Health Group. "We are proud to offer the Intel Reader as a tool for people who have trouble reading standard print so they can more easily access the information many of us take for granted every day, such as reading a job offer letter or even the menu at a restaurant."

China supercomputer breaks performance barrier

China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) has developed a supercomputer that breaks the petaflop barrier, putting China in the same league as the US and Europe for high performance computing.
The supercomputer, called "Tianhe", meaning Milky Way, is based in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province.
The 155-ton system, with 103 refrigerator-like cabinets covering an area of about 1,000 square meters cost $88m and is expected to process seismic data for oil exploration, conduct bio-medical computing and help design aerospace vehicles. It uses 6,144 Intel CPUs and 5,120 AMD GPUs, and reaches a peak performance of 1.206 petaflops and 563.1 teraflops on the Linpack benchmark, making it currently the fourth most powerful machine on the planet.
China's Dawning Information Industry Company is attempting to build its own supercomputer that overcomes the petaflop barrier by 2010, and the NUDT is planning to add "hundreds or thousands of China-made CPUs" to the machine to improve its Linpack performance to over 800 teraflops.

Multicore move for GE Fanuc

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms is to use Freescale’s multicore QorIQ processors in forthcoming products. QorIQ processors feature up to eight cores for maximum performance, and allow GE Fanuc to develop new platforms that will be form-, fit- and function compatible with their PowerPC predecessors and enable existing customers to take advantage of exciting new levels of performance at minimal cost. These new platforms will also allow lower power consumption and heat dissipation per unit of performance.
The QorIQ technology will be used in GE Fanuc’s VME-based, 3U VPX-based, 6U VPX-based and 3U CompactPCI-based families of single board computers. Support for both the eight core P4080 QorIQ processor and the dual core P2020 processor is also planned. All products based on QorIQ technology will be available in five ruggedization levels – including full conduction cooling over the -40°C to +85°C range - to meet the demanding requirements of military customers.
“We have been developing Power Architecture products since the early 1990s,” said Peter Cavill, General Manager, Military & Aerospace Products, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms. “Since then, we have followed up with a growing family of Power Architecture platforms that have enabled our customers to take advantage of the latest processing technologies, keeping their systems at the leading edge of performance with minimum integration effort, and minimizing long term cost of ownership.”
“One of the QorIQ-based products we will introduce will be pin-compatible with the PPC2A – a product we announced in 1997,” he continued. “That’s a powerful demonstration of how we help protect our customers against obsolescence. We expect that this new generation of single board computers will also provide compelling price/performance advantages for new customers.”
The P4080 processor is rated at less than 30 watts and combines eight Power Architecture e500mc cores operating at frequencies up to 1.5 GHz. The P2020 core operates at up to 1.2GHz and Freescale believes this is ideal for applications that have tight thermal constraints.

Multicore TVs: LG signs ARM

LG Electronics, one of the world’s largest digital TV brands, has licensed multicore processor and graphics technology from ARM for its next generation of digital TVs.
LG will use the ARM11 MPCore multicore processor to target a range of platforms with the same architecture simply by implementing single or multiple SMP cores. It will also use ARM Mali-200 and Mali-400 MP graphics processors for 1080p resolution displays for home cinema experience that includes high-definition graphics, whilst vastly improving the browsing experience on DTV user interfaces.
This will also be used to support a full Web 2.0 experience from their DTVs with Adobe and Open source software platforms and the emergence of tru2way technology for interactive cable services, including video-on-demand, voting and polling, games, and e-commerce without the need for a separate set-top box. Additionally, manufacturers are striving to build intelligent AV processing and develop home devices that are more energy efficient.

“By licensing ARM technologies, LG Electronics will be able to offer a future-proofed premium-quality digital TV experience for today’s connected home,” said Seung-Jong Choi, research fellow of Digital TV Lab, LG Electronics. “The connected home relies on technology that is fully functional and that guarantees a high-quality, energy efficient multimedia experience. With Web 2.0 requirements moving into a connected and high definition home, LG Electronics has selected the ARM architecture to guarantee longevity for our own technology.”

The market proven ARM11 MPCore synthesizable multicore processor provides a scalable solution that addresses the requirements of multiple designs. Devices can be configured to contain between one and four processors delivering up to an aggregate 5000 Dhrystone MIPS of performance at 1GHz while providing existing software portability across single CPU and multi-CPU designs. The ARM11 MPCore processor provides the memory throughput required of data intensive applications while delivering greater performance at lower frequencies than comparable single processor designs, so offering significant cost savings to system designers. The ARM11 MPCore processor also simplifies otherwise complex multiprocessor design, reducing time-to-market and total design cost.
The Mali GPU family scales from Mali-55, the world’s smallest OpenGL ES graphics processor to Mali-400 MP, the highest-performance embedded multicore GPU IP on the market which supports complex applications at up to 1080p high-definition resolution, thereby addressing the widest range of performance points for all embedded graphics needs. This diverse offering enables ARM to lead in conformance to numerous open standards and confirms the company’s unique position as a world-class supplier of the complete range of hardware and software graphics IP, enabling application developers and device manufacturers to create competitive and cutting-edge designs.
Mali graphics processors deliver stunning 2D and 3D graphics providing 4x and 16x full scene anti-aliasing (FSAA) without any noticeable drop in performance. In addition to providing content developers with the state-of-the-art programmable features in OpenGL ES 2.0, Mali products also support 2D scalable vector graphics through OpenVG for improved text, navigation, UI and web-browsing experiences.

Netbooks - the next generation

Freescale has been working on new form factors for the next generation of netbooks - story and more pictures at The PortableMultiMedia blog

Android moves into home equipment

MIPS Technologies has ported Google's Android operating system to its processor cores, aiming to drive the software, and Web applications, into more areas such as digital TV and set top boxes.
With Android and the open source development community around it, developers can easily and quickly create new applications and OEMs can leverage the growing set of applications for their devices, says MIPS. With the MIPS ecosystem around Android, OEMs will be able to quickly optimize Android for their specific platforms.

"In the future, almost every consumer device will be connected to the Internet and its wide array of content," said Rich Wawrzyniak, senior analyst for ASIC and SoC at Semico Research Corporation. "Leveraging Android to quickly and easily bring new and innovative applications and user interfaces to devices beyond the mobile phone is a very appealing proposition for consumers. Android also removes applications from their ties to specific hardware systems and opens the market for companies like MIPS Technologies to move into new market segments. I can understand why MIPS’ partners and licensees are excited about Android on MIPS. It is a potential game changer."

MIPS Technologies is establishing development tools and system integration partnerships with service providers to help its licensees with porting, integration, and testing. Partnerships initially include those with Embedded Alley and Viosoft.
Embedded Alley, a leading provider of embedded Linux solutions, is offering support for SoC implementations from MIPS Technologies’ licensees. The Embedded Alley Development System for Android-based Devices includes processor and board support as well as a version of the Android Dalvik virtual machine (VM) optimized for the MIPS instruction set and CPU cores; extending the Android bionic library, linker and other software infrastructure for the MIPS architecture; and providing integration and testing board support industry-specific device drivers, CODECs and other middleware. Embedded Alley is already enabling Android on devices built with the Alchemy Processor family from RMI—providing an Android-ready Linux kernel for RMI Au1250 and the Embedded Alley Development System for Alchemy reference platforms.

“Embedded Alley and MIPS Technologies have been working closely to deliver value to our mutual customers,” said Matthew Locke, COO, Embedded Alley. “Following the success of Android in the mobile phone market, many companies have been looking at the potential of Android beyond mobile handsets, but it just wasn’t clear how to make Android a reality for other types of devices. Embedded Alley, together with MIPS -- a strong leader in the digital home marketplace -- has determined what it will take, and we are making it happen. We are enabling OEMs and developers to create new Android-based designs."

Viosoft Corporation is a key partner for MIPS based software development tools. Viosoft’s Arriba tools deliver comprehensive support for single and multi-core platforms. The tools support Android, and are available today.

“The MIPS architecture has consistently delivered high-performance Linux platforms with low power consumption, making it ideal for VM-based environments such as Android,” said Art Lee, vice president of business development, Viosoft Corporation. “To enable the porting, debugging and deployment of the Android platform on MIPS, Viosoft provides a set of unique and very powerful tools that dramatically reduce development time, risk and costs. Working closely with MIPS Technologies, we are focused on helping OEMs quickly and easily bring their Android platforms to market.”

Shake up in the set top box business

Philips has sold its set top box and connectivity business to Pace Micro Technology of the UK in a move that will help Pace achieve the scale that it needs to compete effectively in global markets. The company has been struggling in recent years, although it has a stream of contracts from the US.
The deal also includes the connectivity business, and Pace has been a leader in this area aiming to integrate the connectivity around the home into the set top box to help maintain margins and prevent the business moving to low cost Chinese suppliers.
Philips agreed in principle to divest the STB and CS businesses to Pace in exchange for 70 million Pace shares. The proposed transaction is subject to approvals from Pace shareholders, the relevant regulatory authorities and Philips' workers council. After completion, Philips will become a 23% shareholder in the combined business, representing a market value of around £60m.
The outcome of the transaction will result in a combination of strengths of two leading players in the industry, creating one of the largest set-top-box players in the world at a time when the shift from analogue to digital TV is rapidly increasing. Commenting on the sale, Philippe Alcaras, Business Unit leader Philips Home Networks said: "We feel that the rapidly changing dynamics of the markets in which the STB and CS businesses operate will inevitably culminate in further industry consolidation. By striking a deal with Pace now, we gain the first-mover advantage and it shows Philips' determination to secure a leading role for our businesses, and make them even more relevant to our customers and technology partners."
The two businesses had estimated sales of EUR 425 million in 2007 and employed 335 people, predominantly based in France, who would transfer to Pace as part of the transaction. The remainder of Home Networks, Home Communications, which includes Internet Telephony and Home Telephony (DECT), will become part of the Peripherals & Accessories unit within Philips' Consumer Lifestyle sector.

It’s the tools, stupid! Microchip moves to 32bit with MIPS

Low cost microcontroller maker Microchip is moving to 32bits using the M4K architecture from MIPS Technologies.

This is a key move for both Microchip, whose PIC 8bit and 16bit microcontrollers are used in millions of places, and for MIPS, that has been missed in the early coverage of the story.

The key is the tools environment. Microchip gets a ready made ecosystem of debuggers and simulators, all of which are much more important in the 32bit space as the point of going to 32bits is to use off the shelf operating systems and readily available protocol stacks etc. These are all available for MIPS already, which is a stunning advantage for Microchip.

But there is also a huge benefit for MIPS, as there is now a tremendous potential installed base of designers who want to use Microchip controllers. This will work in two ways – it encourages and further strengthens the ecosystem and tool development as there are now hundreds of thousands of potential customers for the third party embedded software developers and for the tool vendors. Suddenly the MIPS ecosystem is now hugely viable. That plays into MIPS’ system on chip market, as a successful Microchip design can go to a single chip custom ASIC chip or semi-custom ASSP chip without changing the application software, providing an easier route to lower costs and higher volumes.

Microchip is using the M4K low end variant of the MIPS architecture which was announced last week along with a wide range of analogue peripherals to go around the core from MIPS' earlier acquisition of ChipIdea.

Industry comment to follow……

Graceful degradation in encoding

An interesting element of the recent launch of a family of SD video codec cores from ARC is the use of 'graceful degradation' in the encoding process.
Depending on the resources available - and that can be power or memory - the cores can throw out various tools and reduce the quality of the encoding to extend the battery life or the recording time - this is all up to the designer and allows systems based on the cores to be differentiated through these engineering tradeoffs.

The five cores are based on the recently introduced VRaptor Multicore Architecture, each is programmable, encodes and decodes a wide range of popular video standards, and comes with optimized media processing elements including:
o Up to two 128-bit SIMD Media Processors
o A dual-channel media-optimized DMA engine
o Separate multi-standard encoding and decoding accelerators
o Programmable motion estimation accelerator
o SoC development tools
o Optimized video codecs:
o (encoders) H.264 BP, MPEG-4 SP/ASP, H.263 profile 0, and JPEG
o (decoders) H.264 BP, MPEG-4 SP/ASP, H.263 profile 0, VC-1 SP, MPEG-2 MP, MJPEG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, and PNG



All this is very interesting when video becomes a key IP block for the next decade.

VIA ships 1W x86 processor

To tackle deeply embedded and power sensitive applications, VIA has launched a 500MHz x86 processor that runs at under 1W.
The Eden ULV processor has been designed from the ground up to meet the low power requirements of a wide range of industrial, commercial and ultra mobile applications and has an idle power of 100mW.The 1W power level allows a 21mm x 21mm NanoBGA2 package to be used for more space sensitive applications.
The new processor can be combined with the ultra compact VIA CX700/M system media processor, an advanced all-in-one digital media chipset with a maximum operating power of just 3.5 watts, supporting a wide range of multimedia, connectivity and storage options and enabling system platforms with a maximum power of less than 10 watts.
It is being used by:

AAEON, Acrosser, Adlink, Advansus, Advantech, Aquila, Arbor, Avalue, Axiomtek, Biostar, Bona, Boser, Commate, E-TOP, Flexus, Freetech, Ibase, IEI, Inhand, IPOX, Kontron, Lanner, Liantec, Maple, Nexcom, Posiflex, Portwell, Termtek, Unication and Unicorn.

“With a maximum power of just 1W, the 500MHz VIA Eden ULV processor has finally brought x86 design into the realm of the embedded market,” said Richard Hung, Product Manager at Advantech. “This remarkably low power consumption has allowed our new PCM-4372 to provide all the power, performance and versatility of the x86 architecture to our customers.”

“The 500MHz VIA Eden ULV was the logical choice for our new 5.25” SBC, EBM-CX700 and B5 size slim PC, the ASM-CX700,” said Sam Wang, Vice-President of Avalue. “Now that VIA has brought to market an x86-based processor that doesn’t have the prohibitively high power consumption of other offerings, the benefits in terms of versatility, availability of compatible software and hardware, and performance can’t be overlooked.”

Integrated into the processor is the VIA StepAhead Technology Suite, which boasts an extensive array of performance-enhancing features including the VIA V4 bus at 400MHz, sixteen pipeline stages, branch prediction and an efficiency-enhanced 128KB full-speed exclusive L2 cache, ensuring the processor’s low power consumption doesn’t come at the expense of performance.
It also integrates VIA's PadLock Security Engine security tools to enable real-time military-grade encryption of data such as AES encryption, Secure Hash Algorithm SHA-1 and SHA-256, and a Montgomery Multiplier to accelerate the encryption process used under RSA and other public key transmissions as well as NX Execute Protection to prevent worms from propagating, and dual quantum based random number generators.

“Giving our customers the building blocks to create innovative systems and driving PC technology into new markets defines our ‘Small is Beautiful’ strategy,” said Richard Brown, Vice President of Corporate Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “With its performance, energy efficiency and compact size, our new VIA Eden ULV processor provides a way for embedded developers to add real value to their systems and push the market forward.”

Intrinsity goes for low power with ARM variant...

High performance logic company Intrinisty has used its high speed logic on the ARM cortex R4 core, but instead of gong for the highest possible speed has gone for a low power option.
This is producing twice the clock speed possible with traditional logic, so the Cortex R4X core will run at 600MHz on TSMC's 65nm LP process. The processor implementations uses Intrinsity’s Fast14 1-of-N Domino Logic (NDL) technology, which enables faster circuit speeds while minimizing power consumption and area.
This may well be an admission of defeat for Intrinsity, which has had a high performance MIPS version since it started 10 years ago now, but moved to a licensing model in 2004 and includes both processors and high speed memory.
“Intrinsity FastCores incorporate Fast14 technology, and we use this to enable breakthrough embedded processor performance with very low power consumption,” said Bob Russo, CEO, Intrinsity. “By working closely with ARM on the development of the Cortex-R4X processor implementations, together we will be able to reach a much broader base of designers who are looking for ways to achieve higher performance without sacrificing power efficiency and bring new SoCs to market quickly.”
Moving to a low power approach makes sense for ARM, and the R4X is aimed at storage, printer and networking applications, so taking on MIPS which is more dominant in these areas.
“Mass storage, printing and networking applications need ever increasing levels of performance to handle higher data rates, more media services and new functionality such as encryption,” said Graham Budd, executive vice president and general manager, Processor Division at ARM. “Through this relationship we can extend the performance range of the Cortex-R4 processor to meet these requirements and those of new market domains.”
All versions of the Cortex-R4 processor offer embedded Error Correcting Code (ECC) technology which monitors memory accesses to detect and correct errors, providing very high reliability and availability.
ARM says the Cortex-R4X processor implementations are available for licensing immediately, but will be shipped in Q1 next year. Expect other versions to follow, and an Intrinsity version of the Cortex A8 (the A8X perhaps, but more likely the A9) would hit 1.8GHz and perhaps top 2GHz on a high performance process.


... and sets up acquisition prospect

This technology looks vital to ARM, so expect Intrinsity to be an acquisition target. While it has licensed the technology to ATI (now part of AMD) and has investment from PowerPC licensee AMCC, neither of these are a major stumbling block to being part of ARM and fits well with the processor and IP design philosophy. If this proves popular, and there is little reason why not, then ARM cannot afford NOT to buy it.

FIC launches Linux touchscreen phone

A Taiwanese consortium Openmoko, led by embedded electronics giant FIC, has launched its Linux 'open' phone, Neo 1973, named after the year FIC claims the mobile phone was invented.

The Neo 1973 uses:

* 2.8" VGA TFT color display
* Touchscreen, usable with stylus or fingers (see the Hitachi story below)
* 266MHz Samsung System on a Chip (ARM-11 based SOC)
* USB 1.1, switchable between Client and Host (unpowered) - interesting!
* Integrated Assisted GPS
* 2.5G GSM – quad band, voice, CSD, GPRS
* Bluetooth 2.0
* Micro SD slot
* High Quality audio codec

This incarnation will not work as the applications are not available that the operators demand, but this is the start of a more open generation of mobile phones using Linux that will stimulate the eco-system of mobile phone applications (and viruses of course) and eventually drive down the costs of smartphones, but it will take many years! All credit to FIC for starting the ball rolling in a serious way, and these guys know how to manufacture in volume to a price!