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Issue #162 -- 05/27/2003
Editor: Tom R. Halfhill
In this issue:
Peter Glaskowsky - Editor-in-Chief {05/27/2003}
Many of you have been reading the online
edition of Microprocessor Report since we started publishing to
the Web in January 2000. Now it’s time to take another big step
in our electronic evolution: We’re going to open online forums where
our customers and analysts can exchange messages discussing newsletter
articles, content from our conferences, and related topics. If you’re
a newsletter subscriber or recent conference attendee, you’ll soon
receive a separate mailing describing how to join our online forum.
We’re just testing the waters for now, seeing if these message boards
generate enough customer interest to justify continuing them. They
represent a significant investment in time and effort, because our
analysts will be responsible for moderating and participating in
what could be a fairly busy service. We’ll keep the new forum going
for at least six months, then collect feedback and decide where
to go from there. We may eventually expand the service to include
the readers of our free Microprocessor Watch and Embedded Processor
Watch email newsletters or subscribers to In-Stat/MDR report services
such as the Intel Microprocessors service. We may also schedule
live online chats with invited guests, but that’s probably well
in the future.
The online forum is just another part of our ongoing efforts to
make our services more valuable to our customers. Earlier this year,
we increased the price of Microprocessor Report subscriptions by
about 25% on average—a difficult decision in difficult economic
times, to be sure. Since last year, we’ve also increased the average
number of newsletter pages per month by about 25%. We’re covering
more products from more companies, but we’re maintaining our tight
focus on microprocessor technology.
The time is right to add an online forum. After several years of
declining diversity in high-end microprocessor architectures, we’re
seeing signs of new life in this field. There have been plenty of
new “extreme” processors for embedded systems, particularly in the
areas of multimedia and networking, but now some of the architectural
advances embodied in these special-purpose chips are being incorporated
into new general-purpose microprocessors. Our industry is not converging
to just a few distinct product families—it’s opening up to a much
wider range of solutions.
We believe the best way to help you understand these alternatives
is to help you discuss them. We know most of you will spend more
time reading the discussions than contributing to them; that’s the
way all good discussions work. You’ll benefit from our discussions,
even if you don’t read them at all, because they’ll help us shape
our coverage of new products in Microprocessor Report and at our
conferences.
Some of you may be familiar with Usenet discussion forums such as
the comp.arch hierarchy for computer architecture or the message
boards on various PC-enthusiast Web sites. We think we can deliver
unique value in this market by having a more-qualified customer
base and more-careful moderation of ongoing discussions.
The best way to encourage us to continue the online forum is to
participate in it. Some of you won’t be able to contribute to discussions
in your line of work because of confidentiality concerns, and that’s
okay. Perhaps you’ll have comments in other areas instead.
We’re excited about this opportunity to interact with you on a more
frequent basis, and we’re looking forward to seeing how it develops.
We hope to see you online soon.
To find out more about Microprocessor Report, please visit:
www.mdronline.com.
Markus Levy - Senior Editor {05/27/2003}
No one underestimates the challenges the
intellectual property business has been facing: times are tough.
So it’s not surprising that MIPS Technologies has lost money for
the past seven quarters. However, MIPS has begun the process of
becoming profitable again. Unfortunately, part of that recovery
process involves losing 30% of its workforce. The other part, however,
calls for refocusing on its product line and engineering talent,
turning away from the custom hard-macro processor side of its business.
MIPS’s custom processor business included processors such as the
20Kc and the core code named Amethyst.
This transition away from custom hard-core development should not
negatively impact MIPS’s licensing revenue as the majority of its
business comes from its customers’ licensing either instruction
sets or synthesizable cores to build their own products. The question:
Has MIPS made the right decisions?
Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story here:
www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2003/0527/172102.html. To find out more
about Microprocessor Report, please visit:
www.mdronline.com.
Markus Levy - Senior Editor {05/27/2003}
After accomplishing its goals of producing
the highest-operating-frequency embedded processors and securing
additional investor funding, Intrinsity has stepped back, to trade
operating frequency for power consumption. Apparently, Intrinsity
has been doing a great job of pumping up the investment community,
as it recently convinced its investors to complete its $35 million
round of venture funding, bringing the total external capital to
$49 million. Certainly, this is a positive indicator in today’s
difficult investment climate.
The new FastMATH-LP’s power consumption is 5.5W at 1GHz, down from
13.5W for the 2GHz product. This power drop is largely the result
of an operating voltage drop. The 1.5GHz and 2GHz products operate
from a 1.0V voltage supply. (This article contains MPR’s estimates
on the FastMATH-LP’s operating voltage.) In the middle ground, Intrinsity
is also offering 1.5GHz FastMIPS and FastMATH parts.
Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story here:
www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2003/0527/172103.html. To find out more
about Microprocessor Report, please visit:
www.mdronline.com.
Tom R. Halfhill - Senior Editor {05/19/2003}
Eight-bit chips still account for 56% of
microprocessor sales by volume and 40% of revenues, according to
World Semiconductor Trade Statistics. Embedded-systems developers
keep using these puny chips because they are unbeatably cheap, sip
miniscule amounts of power, and are small enough to add a dab of
silicon intelligence to almost anything large enough to see.
Hoping to displace 8- and 16-bit chips with more-powerful (and more-profitable)
devices, Philips Semiconductors is introducing a new line of ARM7TDMI-based
32-bit MCUs. Philips knows it can’t beat the smallest MCUs on their
own terms, but the company figures that a wisely downsized 32-bit
MCU might deliver enough extra performance to lure some developers
away from their frugal habits. To sweeten the bait, Philips is fabricating
the new MCUs in a special 0.18-micron CMOS process that offers the
option of embedded flash memory. So far, all three devices in the
LPC2100 family have 128K of embedded flash, but future chips will
offer as little as 64K or as much as 1MB.
Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story here:
www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2003/0519/172001.html. To find out more
about Microprocessor Report, please visit:
www.mdronline.com.
Markus Levy - Senior Editor {05/19/2003}
In an effort to thwart the competition and
give customers a head start on design-ins, Texas Instruments has
announced the birth of a 1GHz TMS320C64x device, which it expects
to start sampling and producing in 1H04. The products will come
from a 90-nanometer process that will help accomplish this performance
goal with less than 2W.
Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story here:
www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2003/0519/172002.html. To find out more
about Microprocessor Report, please visit:
www.mdronline.com.
Markus Levy - Senior Editor {05/19/2003}
The original TriMedia architecture was born
inside Philips Semiconductors in 1996 with the TM1000 processor.
In 2000, Philips spun off the TriMedia architecture group to create
TriMedia Technologies, an independent intellectual property vendor,
but brought the architecture back in house in October 2002. Also
in October 2002, Philips launched the Nexperia pnx1500 device, and
a new core is rumored for later in 2003.
Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story here:
www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2003/0519/172003.html. To find out more
about Microprocessor Report, please visit:
www.mdronline.com.
Tom R. Halfhill - Senior Editor {05/12/2003}
Intel’s newest microprocessor for mobile
PCs is hardly out the door, but already the Intel Communications
Group is promoting it as a high-performance embedded processor for
networking. Intel is also sketching a roadmap for future chip sets
that will improve the differentiation between its embedded and PC/server
platforms.
The “new” embedded processor is the Pentium M, formerly known as
Banias, which Intel introduced in March as part of the Centrino
mobile PC platform. (See MPR 3/31/03-01, “Pentium M Hits the Street.”)
Although the mobile market currently has six Pentium M speed grades,
ranging from 900MHz to 1.6GHz, Intel is offering the embedded market
only two speeds: 1.1GHz and 1.6GHz. This probably reflects Intel’s
intention to sell the embedded Pentium M into high-performance communications-infrastructure
applications, such as core routers, server blades, and network controllers.
In those kinds of applications, the embedded Pentium M will be a
control-plane or applications processor that works alongside a more-specialized
network processor.
Ideally, Intel should produce a more-integrated version of the Pentium
M to compete with highly integrated communications processors like
the Broadcom BCM1250. When one adds up the power consumption of
a comparable Pentium M configuration, the total is more than three
times the power consumption of the BCM1250. If Intel wants to make
serious inroads into embedded communications, it may have to do
more than relabel PC processors and chip sets as embedded processors
and chip sets. Leveraging the high-volume PC-processor business
model has its limitations.
Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story here:
www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2003/0512/171901.html. To find out more
about Microprocessor Report, please visit:
www.mdronline.com.
Max Baron - Principal Analyst {05/05/2003}
On February 3, Samsung Electronics announced
a system-in-package (SiP) that combines the S3C2410—an ARM-based
applications processor—with NAND flash and SDRAM.
Samsung is aiming this package at cellphone and PDA applications.
The first product, aimed at handheld applications, leverages the
company’s memory and chip technologies as it joins offerings from
other chip manufacturers competing for design wins.
Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story here:
www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2003/0505/171801.html. To find out more
about Microprocessor Report, please visit:
www.mdronline.com.
Peter Glaskowsky - Editor-in-Chief {05/05/2003}
AMCC has announced two new network processors
with enhanced integration and performance. The nP3450 and nP3454,
both aimed at metropolitan-area Ethernet networks, replace the company’s
earlier nP3400 and nP3404 devices for new designs. With hardware
task accelerators and faster packet-processing cores borrowed from
AMCC’s nP7510, the new chips will reduce the parts count and system
cost of high-performance Internet routers.
The new network-processing cores (nPcores) adapted from the nP7510
provide the biggest boost to the new nP345x chips. Each nPcore executes
400 million instructions per second. Combined, the cores can execute
about 125 instructions for each packet transmitted over two full-duplex
Gigabit Ethernet links.
Earlier in April, AMCC announced an “organizational realignment”
that will reduce its workforce 31%. AMCC attributed the need for
these layoffs to “continued softness” in the markets it serves.
New network processors are expensive to develop and difficult to
sell, but AMCC has been in this business as long as anyone and believes
it knows what the market needs. The new nP3450 and nP3454, and future
code-compatible products, are meant to meet these needs by significantly
reducing the cost of networking equipment and improving its performance.
The nP3450 and nP3454 are scheduled to ship in 2H03.The software-development
environment for the new chips—including the nPcore kernel software,
simulator, and other tools—will be available in 2Q03. Pricing has
not been announced.
Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story here:
www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2003/0505/171802.html. To find out more
about Microprocessor Report, please visit:
www.mdronline.com.
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