Cores

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Today's Feature

Chips with Everything: ARM Holdings is in the Chip Business. They're Mad About Them. They Design Them. They License Them.
As Robin Saxby enters his office at ARM Holdings, he has the look of a man on a mission. You might think his only preoccupation would be to shore up the short-term share price of his microprocessor design company during the downturn in the technology industry. But this is not so, and there are two main reasons. (e-inSITE)
Intellectual Property and Roquefort
I remember being taken for a guided tour of the Ampex plant in Redwood City in the early 70s. It was a really busy place and the executive who took me on the nickel trip was full of praise for the company's products. Even more, it was clear that he, and the company, were confident that the range of patents that the company held would keep them in the vanguard of video tape recording for generations. (ChipCenter: Wireless)
Chip Companies Stockpiling IP Cores
In a sign that even semiconductor giants are unable to go it alone in today's lean, fast-paced environment, the number and scope of the intellectual property licenses unveiled at the Embedded Systems Conference appeared to reach new heights. The dozen or so agreements, which included heavyweight licensees such as Intel, LSI Logic, and STMicroelectronics, show that companies are stockpiling multiple architectures as they search for the perfect IP core to power their next embedded market foray. (Electronic Buyers' News)
Processor Architecture for Gearheads
The holiday season is here, and we deserve a 'break' from all this serious stuff. I've always liked the internal combustion engine�I think it's a fascinating thing. So I've decided to compare and contrast the internal combustion engine with a computer processor. Wait! Before you 'change the channel,' take a quick look at what I've come up with. (ChipCenter: EE Expert)

IP -- Cores Subsections

Business

- New - Intellectual Phantasy (IP) With Visions of ARM Dancing in Their Heads, IP Companies Dream of Impossible Revenues
New wrinkle in IP model. Can small be beautiful and profitable? The original business plan for Pixim Inc., Mountain View, CA, proposed an intellectual property (IP) licensing model for the start-up's digital imaging technology. But one month after CEO Bob Weinschenk joined Pixim in May 2000, he rejected that plan in favor of a fabless semiconductor business model. 'There is a tremendous downside to the IP-only model,' he explains. (Electronic Business)
Distribution Vets Use Their Insight to Form IP Company
Hoping to unlock the potential of merchant intellectual property, two component distribution veterans have formed a company chartered as a franchised IP distributor. Known as Voyageur Technical Sales Inc., the Mississauga, Ontario, company aims to provide a North American marketing and sales channel for IP suppliers that don't have the resources to go it alone. (Electronic Buyers' News)
ARM - SAMSUNG Licences ARM Securcore Technology For Use In 32-BIT Smart Card Applications
ARM , a provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, has announced that Samsung Electronics Co. Limited has licensed the ARM SecurCore(tm) SC100(tm) microprocessor core. Samsung will use ARM's 32-bit secure technology to address the next generation of 32-bit smart card applications. (e-inSITE)

Licensing

- New - Tality Becomes ARC Design Partner
ARC International plc. announced that Tality Corp., a subsidiary of Cadence Design Systems Inc., has become a design services and development partner. The agreement gives Tality access to the user customizable ARCtangentTM-A4 processor, technology, software and development tools, allowing for new designs and licenses for products based on Elstree, England-based ARC�s technology. (e-inSITE)
- New - Resonext Communications Licenses ARM Processor Core For Advanced WI-FI5 (802.11a) Wireless LAN Chipset
ARM, a provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, and Resonext Communications, Inc., an emerging developer of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) semiconductor products, announced that Resonext has licensed the ARM922T� processor core for integration into its 5Ghz RN5200 WLAN chipsets. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
Mentor Graphics Provides Critical USB IP Core for InfoStream Mobile Internet Platform from Parthus Technologies
Mentor Graphics Corporation, provider of standards-based intellectual property (IP) solutions and services, announced that it has licensed the Inventra� USB Function Controller to Parthus� Technologies for use in the company's InfoStream mobile communications platform. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
IDT Reaffirms its Commitment to MIPS Technologies By Taking a License for MIPS32� and MIPS64� Processor Architectures
MIPS Technologies, Inc., a provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital consumer and networking applications, announced it licensed its MIPS32� and MIPS64� architectures to IDT (Nasdaq: IDTI), a leading communications integrated circuit (IC) provider. Licensing the MIPS32 and MIPS64 architectures, combined with IDT's previously announced license of the MIPS32 4Kc� core, allows IDT to select the most appropriate approach for the development of its next generation of integrated communications processors. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
Japan Space Agency Takes License for MIPS Technologies 64-Bit Core
The National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) has taken a license for the MIPS64� 5Kf� processor core from MIPS Technologies for use in a new satellite control and data transmission application. The 5Kf core will be used as the processing core of choice for the next generation of NASDA satellites and will utilize MIPS Technologies' industry-standard, high-performance, low-power, 64-bit architecture. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
LSI Logic licenses USB 2.0 core from Innovative Semi
LSI Logic Corp. said it is licensing Innovative Semiconductor Inc.'s USB 2.0 transceiver technology for integration into LSI's CoreWare library of intellectual property. The SL205 USB Transceiver Macrocell from Innovative will give LSI and its customers a cost-effective, scaleable architecture for next-generation digital multimediadevices and computer peripherals, the company said. (Electronic Buyers' News)
Oak Licenses Embedded ARM Cores, Unveils Quatro SoC Platform
Oak Technology and ARM have signed a license agreement under which Oak will incorporate the ARM7 family and ARM9 family of embedded CPU cores into Oak's system-on-chip (SoC) products for the imaging and optical storage markets. Oak Technology has also unveiled a new system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture that combines an ARM CPU core with Oak's next-generation image processing DSP core. (e-inSITE)
Samsung Licenses ARM SecurCore Technology For Use in 32-bit Smart Card Applications
ARM, a provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, announced that Samsung Electronics Co. Limited has licensed the ARM� SecurCore� SC100� microprocessor core. Samsung will use ARM's 32-bit secure technology to address the next generation of 32-bit smart card applications. In October 2000, Samsung announced the availability of its component for high-performance smart cards that integrate an ARM7� family 32-bit RISC processor with Samsung secure IC technology. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
Oak and ARM Sign Agreement To Develop Next-Generation Solutions For High-Growth Digital Media Markets
Oak Technology and ARM, a provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, has announced a license agreement that will allow Oak to incorporate the ARM7 family and ARM9 family of embedded CPU cores in its development of system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for the imaging and optical markets. The agreement supports Oak's initiative to aggressively provide advanced, enabling technologies to emerging opportunities in the personal imaging appliance and personal media storage markets. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
Virtio Integrates High-Performance ARM Models For Complete Prototyping Environment
Virtio Corporation and ARM, a provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC processor solutions, announced that Virtio will integrate high- performance ARM� models into the Virtio virtual platforms. This offers software developers a virtual environment for developing and integrating embedded software before physical hardware is available. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
PrairieComm Licenses DSP Group's High-Performance Digital Signal Processing Core Technology
PrairieComm, Inc., a leading provider of chipsets for wireless handsets from the world's leading consumer electronics manufacturers, and DSP Group Inc., the leader in the development and licensing of high- performance, cost-effective digital signal processing (DSP) cores, announced they have entered into a strategic DSP technology licensing agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, PrairieComm has licensed DSP Group's TeakLite technology as a platform for developing its next-generation solutions for wireless communications. (e-inSITE)
SIDSA Joins ARM ATAP Program
ARM, a provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC processor solutions, and SIDSA, announced that SIDSA has joined the ARM ATAP� technology access program. Under this agreement, SIDSA will offer total design and consultancy capabilities to OEMs and silicon vendor of ARM� core-based systems in Europe. SIDSA is the leading design consultancy in Spain, with more than 50 percent of its work undertaken for international customers. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
NEC Licenses V850E Microprocessor Core to Synopsys
NEC Corporation (NEC) and NEC Electronics Inc., its wholly-owned subsidiary in the U.S., announced NEC has licensed its V850ETM 32-bit RISC microprocessor core to Synopsys Inc., a provider of electronic design automation (EDA) tools. The V850E CPU core will be incorporated into Synopsys' popular DesignWare IP library, allowing over 25,000 registered DesignWare LSI engineers to evaluate and design new system-on-a-chip (SoC) products powered by the V850E CPU core. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
SandCraft Licenses Alcatel Technology for High Performance Network Infrastructure Chips
Alcatel and SandCraft Inc., a designer of high-performance MIPS� processors, announced that SandCraft has licensed Alcatel's Gigabit Ethernet MAC soft core technology for its next generation Central Processing Units (CPUs) for advanced networking services. With Alcatel's Gigabit Ethernet soft core technology, SandCraft will bring verified, stable, proven architecture to customers of its advanced superscalar microprocessor solutions. (ChipCenter: WebScan)

New Products

- New - ARM Introduces ARMv6
ARM, provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, announced that it has extended its microprocessor-technology road map with the introduction of the next-generation ARMv6 architecture. ARM gave a presentation at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, Calif., disclosing the technical details of this new ARM architecture. The ARMv6 architecture has been developed by working closely with our architectural licensees such as Intel Corporation and Motorola, and our year-long collaboration with Texas Instruments Incorporated, to extend the capability of the ARM architecture while maintaining code compatibility with earlier ARM core-based products, thereby safeguarding Partners' investment in software. The ARMv6 architecture adds the Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) instructions, as announced last year, to the proven ARM ISA, boosting performance in audio and video functions by as much as four times. (ChipCenter: ASIC)
- New - LSI To Deliver 200-MHz ARM946E-S Core
LSI Logic Corporation has announced the availability of the company's implementation of an ARM946E-S processor core running at 200 MHz. 'Customers now can efficiently utilize a commodity SDRAM system without leaving memory performance on the table,' said senior director Rafi Kedem in a prepared statement. (e-inSITE)
Mentor Intros IP Cores For Altera's Excalibur
Mentor Graphics Corp. today said it would make its Inventra IP cores available to customers of Altera Corp.�s Excalibur products. San Jose-based Mentor Graphics has designed its Inventra IPX product for use with Altera�s PLDs as part of its membership to the Altera megafunction partnership program (AMPP). Excalibur is used to develop system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) applications. (e-inSITE)
Mentor Graphics Delivers Communications Standards-based IP Cores for Use with Altera Excalibur ARM-Based Family
Mentor Graphics Corporation and Altera Corporation have announced that its mutual customers now have access to a selection of Inventra� intellectual property (IP) cores optimized for use with Altera's Excalibur� ARM�-based embedded processor solutions. Mentor Graphics�, as a member of the Altera Megafunction Partnership Program (AMPP), has been developing IP solutions, such as the new Inventra IPX� product, that are pre-optimized for easy integration into Altera programmable logic devices (PLDs). Mentor has extended its support to the new Altera Excalibur ARM-based family of devices, enabling the rapid development of system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) applications. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
ARM Extends Its Lead in 32-bit Cores for Smart Cards and Security Applications
ARM, provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, has announced at Cartes 2001, Paris, France, the extension of the SecurCore� family with the introduction of the SC200� and SC210� microprocesssor cores, continuing the development of the SecurCore roadmap, targeting the rapidly growing smart card and security market. Sun� Java Card� has been proven over the past two years as the leading operating system (OS) for smart cards, and in particular for SIMs in GSM mobile phones. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
Altera Announces 3rd Party IP Cores For ARM-Based Excaliber
Altera has announced a suite of intellectual property (IP) cores for embedded applications that have been optimized for use with the company's ARM-based Excalibur devices. Based on an embedded RISC architecture, Altera's Excalibur ARM-based family of embedded processor PLDs have been designed to provide single chip-integration of a 200-MHz ARM922T processor core, programmable logic, on-chip memory, and peripherals. (e-inSITE)
Eureka Joins MIPS Alliance, Intros IP Cores For SoC Designs
Eureka Technology has announced its participation in the MIPS Alliance Program (MAP) as well as the introduction of new IP cores that have been designed specifically to support the MIPS32 4K and MIPS64 5K families of processor cores. The new IP cores offer support for the MIPS EC Interface for embedded processor cores as well as the SysAD bus for compatibility with designs that incorporate MIPS-based CPUs. (e-inSITE)
ARM Announces Technical Details Of Next-Generation Architecture New ARMv6 Architecture
ARM , a provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, announced that it has extended its microprocessor technology roadmap with the introduction of the next-generation ARMv6 architecture. The ARMv6 architecture has been developed by working closely with architectural licensees such as Intel Corporation and Motorola, and year-long collaboration with Texas Instruments Incorporated, to extend the capability of the ARM architecture while maintaining code compatibility with earlier ARM core-based products, thereby safeguarding Partners' investment in software. (ChipCenter: WebScan)
OAK and ARM Sign Agreement To Develop Next-Generation Solutions For High-Growth Digital Media Markets
Oak Technology and ARM , a provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, has announced a license agreement that will allow Oak to incorporate the industry-leading ARM7O family and ARM9O family of embedded CPU cores in its development of system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for the imaging and optical markets. (e-inSITE)
NEC Releases Embedded ARM7 Gate Array SoC
NEC Electronics has announced the availability of a new System-on-a-Chip Lite (SoCLite) gate array family that comprises an embedded ARM7 microcontroller core, 190,000 usable logic gates, peripherals and memory. (e-inSITE)
Proteus Processor Core Gets Embedded Linux Port
Silaria Ltd., a developer of processor intellectual property, has ported a version of embedded Linux from Lineo Inc. (Lindon, Utah) to its Proteus 3 processor as part of its revised tool suite. Although Silaria claims Proteus could be scaled down to 8-bit versions, the company is aiming at 16-, 32- and 64-bit versions of the core with the uCLinux operating system. (EE Times)
CAST Launches Multimedia Line with IP Cores for Image or Video Compression
Flexible Discrete Wavelet and Cosine Transform cores from multimedia experts Alma Technologies ready for JPEG or MPEG applications Semiconductor intellectual property (IP) provider CAST, Inc. today announced its expansion into multimedia applications with the introduction of cores for image/video compression from new development partner Alma Technologies. The new cores implement the popular discrete cosine transform (DCT) and emerging discrete wavelet transform (DWT) algorithms. (e-inSITE)
DSP Group and MEICOM Technologies Unveil an Intellectual Property Solution For the Emerging Digital-Camera
DSP Group, a developer of high-performance, low-power, licensable Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), and MEICOM Technologies Ltd., a provider of image- and video-processing algorithms and software, have unveiled an Intellectual Property (IP) platform for digital cameras designed to provide high performance, four mega pixels per second, and high-quality image output. (e-inSITE)

News

ARM and Synopsys Partner to Deliver AMBA Interconnect-Based Solutions Through DesignWare Star IP Program
ARM, a provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC processor technology, and Synopsys, Inc., announced that the Synopsys DesignWare(R) Star IP Program has adopted the AMBA(R) bus-based on-chip solution as its IP interconnect standard. The two companies also announced the inclusion of ARM(R) microprocessor models within DesignWare. (e-inSITE)

Technology

Your Core, My Design, Our Problem
Following the precept that it is better to reuse than to reinvent, the electronics industry has created a new business segment: commerce in IP (intellectual-property) cores, also known as virtual components. This article refers to reusable logic as a virtual component because the term 'IP' refers to more than just electronics design and has other connotations in our industry. (EDN)

Resources

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