Embedded Processor Watch

Editor: Jim Turley

In This Issue:

• MoSys To Offer MDRAM Technology
• SST: Another 8051 With Flash on the Cheap
• EEMBC To Sell Benchmarks, Open Testing Lab
• Industry Resources: DSP Enhancements to Be Debated at Forum
• New Embedded IC Announcements

MoSys To Offer MDRAM Technology

Specialty memory manufacturer MoSys has decided to enter the intellectual-property business by licensing its unusual multibank memory architecture (see Microprocessor Report 12/25/95, p. 17) to semiconductor vendors. The MoSys memory design, which it calls 1T-SRAM, is an embedded-DRAM cell that can be manufactured in either a pure-logic process or a process designed for embedded DRAM. In either case, MoSys claims a 4x improvement in power at equivalent speed and up to 3-9x improvement in area.

The MoSys MDRAM is a true DRAM design in that it uses one transistor per bit. It achieves its power savings because only a small portion of the entire array-one bank-is active at one time. Other banks are either powered down or periodically refreshed. The invisible refresh behavior makes 1T-SRAM look like an SRAM to system logic, while the very small bank size gives it SRAM-like speed.

MoSys (http://www.mosys.com) has not enjoyed enormous success with its SRAM-like DRAMs. Licensing the same technology for embedded-DRAM ASIC usage may be just the new approach the company needs.

SST: Another 8051 With Flash on the Cheap

Silicon Storage Technology (SST) has entered the crowded market for 8051-compatible microcontrollers with its own line of chips with flash memory. SST's chips, which are part of a planned family with the difficult-to-pronounce name of FlashFlex51, are pin and software compatible with the plethora of 8051 microcontrollers available from various sources.

Clock speeds range up to 33 MHz, and supply voltages down to 2.7 V. The chips are available with from 16K to 64K of flash memory, plus an additional 4K block of EEPROM. SST (http://www.ssti.com) is sampling these chips now, with production scheduled for 2Q99. Prices start at $4.85 in "large quantities."

Flash memory has slowly made inroads into various microprocessors, large and small, over the past 10 years. Customer demand has been consistent, but manufacturing difficulties have kept the price of flash-based microcontrollers much higher than those of their one-time-programmable (OTP) equivalents until recently. Over the next few years, flash-based processors may eventually displace OTP devices for most high-volume applications.

EEMBC To Sell Benchmarks, Open Testing Lab

The EEMBC benchmark group (see Embedded Processor Watch #33) is making its suite of embedded benchmark code available to nonmembers. Any interested party can now license the benchmark suite for a one-time fee of $30,000, with $5,000 annual renewal fees ensuring regular updates. Previously, the EEMBC tests were available only to the group's 24 members, which are exclusively microprocessor vendors.

At the same time, the nonprofit consortium founded ECL, the EEMBC Certification Labs, a for-profit business to certify the results of all benchmark testing. EEMBC bylaws prohibit the publication of benchmark results until (or unless) they have been verified by ECL. ECL's customers will be EEMBC members that call upon the lab to "bless" results deemed worthy of publication. Presumably, vendors with poorly performing chips would have no incentive to pay for ECL's services. (ECL can be found at http://www.embedded-benchmarks.com.)

By licensing its benchmarks to nonmembers, EEMBC hopes to attract compiler vendors, operating-system makers, and hardware OEMs who wish to tune their products to perform better on the tests. Compiler writers have historically tweaked their wares in order to produce better benchmark scores, a philosophy that runs somewhat counter to the spirit of the benchmark. Nevertheless, the wider distribution of EEMBC's code should help to make it more popular and, therefore, useful as a metric for comparison.

EEMBC will make the first public disclosure of its benchmark scores on May 4 at Embedded Processor Forum. Forum attendees who are interested in more detailed benchmark results, or who have questions or comments are invited to attend the EEMBC affinity session that evening.

Industry Resources: DSP Enhancements to Be Debated at Forum

Three leaders in the microprocessor IP industry -- ARC Cores, ARM Holdings, and Lexra Computing Engines -- will each debut new DSP extensions to their respective 32-bit RISC cores at Embedded Processor Forum. Technical leaders from each company will explain the philosophy and details of their implementation, and then all three will participate in a live roundtable discussion as the Forum moderator and Forum attendees ask questions.

Embedded Processor Forum, held May 3-6 in San Jose, will feature 20 such new chip and technology announcements covering RISC, DSP, and processor IP. For more information about Embedded Processor Forum, visit http://www.MDRonline.com/epf or dial 800.527.0288.

New Embedded IC Announcements

TMP91CW12F (Toshiba) Microcontroller has 16-bit TLCS900L/1 core, IrDA interface, 128K of ROM, 4K of RAM, four-channel DMA controller, 10-bit A/D converter. Price: $8.30/10,000; Production: Now; Call Toshiba at 800.879.4963.

TMP93CS20F (Toshiba) Microcontroller has 16-bit TLCS900/L core, on-chip LCD driver, 64K of ROM, 2K of RAM, timer, eight 10-bit A/D converters. Price: $5.95/10,000; Production: Now; Call Toshiba at 800.879.4963.

DS87C550 (Dallas Semiconductor) Microcontroller is compatible with 8051 but executes instructions more quickly; with 33-MHz clock speed, 10-bit A/D converter, 1K extra SRAM. Price: $12.60/1,000; Production: Now; Call Dallas at 972.371.4448.

TNETX4080 (Texas Instruments) Low-cost eight-port Fast Ethernet device for 10/100-Mbps switches includes integrated management port. Price: $55/10,000; Production: Now; Call TI at 800.477.8924.

PCI9610 (PLX) Bus-mastering PCI interface for Motorola MPC8260 PowerQUICC II processor has 66-MHz PCI 2.2 interface including CompactPCI hot-swap. Price: $49/100; Production: Now; Call PLX at 408.774.9060.

PEB20324H (Siemens) Four-port 128-channel protocol controller for WAN internetworking gear has four 24/32-channel HDLC controllers with 64- channel DMA. Price: $62.35/10,000; Production: Now; Call Siemens at 408.777.4500.

CS8900A-IQ, CS8900A-CQ3 (Crystal Semiconductor) Industrial-temperature- range embedded Ethernet controllers run at 5 V ('IQ) or 3 V ('CQ3), include 10Base-T transmit and receive filters. Price: $8.80/10,000; Production: Now; Call Crystal at 512.912.3587.