Market Rapidly Embraces Tensilica’s Diamond Standard Processor Cores in 2Q06

As of the end of the second quarter of 2006, Tensilica licensed 12 Diamond Standard series cores. This number included 10 new customers who had not previously used Tensilica’s processor products. In most of these designs, the Diamond Standard processors are used as the main SOC (system-on-chip) controller or main DSP (digital signal processing) engine.

“For the customer who just wants a drop-in solution for fast deployment late in the design cycle, the Diamond Standard processors hit the market’s sweet spots,” stated Chris Rowen, Tensilica’s president and CEO. “The typical processor customer wants standard control or DSP functions in the smallest, most power-efficient form factor – and that’s what we have to offer. We’re particularly pleased that our Diamond Standard processor family opened up doors at new customer sites, expanding our reach in the SOC design community.”

More at: http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2006_07_18.htm

Tensilica Launches Campaign to Raise $20,000 for San Jose Ballet at DAC

Tensilica is launching a campaign to raise $20,000 for Ballet San Jose (California) at this year’s Design Automation Conference (DAC), July 24-27 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. By painting 10”x10” canvases, conference attendees will artistically contribute to giant murals, designed by German artist Lothar Krebs, that will be given to leading Silicon Valley companies that make substantial donations to Ballet San Jose. Ballerinas from Ballet San Jose will be assisting the artists in the Tensilica booth, number 3548, at the front of the North Hall.

"Every chip designer is, in many ways, an artist. So at DAC, we’re celebrating the artist within each of us by letting attendees paint parts of giant pictures that tell the story of chip design,” stated Chris Rowen, Tensilica’s president and CEO. “We’ll use this artwork to support another art – ballet. Ballet San Jose is an integral part of our Silicon Valley culture and deserves widespread support.”

During the 4-day DAC exhibition, attendees will be able to paint part of a different picture each day. To preview the pictures and find out more, see http://www.tensilica.com/company/DAC_2006.htm

Morgan Kaufmann Publishes Tensilica Book Targeting SOC Designers

“Designing SOCs with Configured Cores: Unleashing the Tensilica Xtensa and Diamond Cores,” by Steve Leibson, technology evangelist at Tensilica, is now available. The book is a no-nonsense guide to the design of 21st-century mega-gate SOCs using nanometer silicon and emphasizes a processor-centric system on chip (SOC) design style. “Designing SOCs with Configured Cores” also provides SOC designers with the most comprehensive assessment available of the practical aspects of configuring and using multiple processor cores to achieve their very difficult and ambitious price, performance, and power design goals.

The book, published by Morgan Kaufmann, provides SOC designers with a practical introduction to three basic techniques of modern SOC design: use of optimized standard CPU and DSP processors cores, application-specific configuration of processor cores, and system-level design of SOCs using configured cores as the key building block. The book has a list price of $59.95 and is available at www.books.elsevier.com.

PnpNetwork Licenses Diamond Standard 330HiFi and 212GP for Mobile Phone TV Chip Designs

PnpNetwork Technologies, Inc., of Seoul, Korea, has licensed two Diamond Standard processor cores for their digital mobile broadcasting chip designs for mobile consumer broadcast TV applications and video-enabled handset designs. PnpNetwork will use the Diamond Standard 330HiFi for high-quality audio processing and the Diamond Standard 212GP as a control processor for their chip designs. See press release for more details: http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2006_07_06.htm