New Energy Estimator Tool Guides Designers to Energy-Efficient SOC Architectures

To address the growing need to pro-actively reduce power consumption in embedded systems, Tensilica announced the Xenergy estimator, a unique energy estimator for both Xtensa configurable processors and Diamond Standard processors. By using the Xenergy tool to optimize for energy early in the SOC design cycle, designers can cut processor and local memory energy requirements by up to half by making intelligent design trade-offs.

“Xenergy will naturally appeal to designers of portable, battery-driven devices such as cellular phones and personal media players, but also to designers of complex SOCs in home entertainment and networking devices where heat is becoming a huge issue,” stated Chris Rowen, Tensilica’s president and CEO. “Tensilica is the first company to provide a realistic way to easily estimate the overall energy impact of different processor configurations and extensions together with application code tuning on each processor with its memory subsystem. The improvement in power at the architectural level is quite dramatic and productive, often dwarfing the power savings painfully achieved at the RTL and physical design levels.”

For more information, see http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2007_02_26.htm

Penstar Technology Licenses Diamond 330HiFi Audio Processor Core

Penstar Technology has licensed Tensilica’s Diamond Standard 330HiFi Audio Processor core for use in a new SOC design for cellular phones and personal media players (PMPs) conforming to China’s emerging Audio Video coding Standard (AVS). Penstar intends to be the first Chinese company to offer a low power chip that is fully compliant with AVS, following the successful release of its DS-1000 IC product, which is an AVS video decoder IC supporting both standard and high definition video applications for digital TV and IPTV (Internet Protocol TV). Penstar will use the Diamond Standard 330HiFi Audio Processor for both the audio and control functions in the SOC.

For more information, see http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2007_02_13.htm

Plato Networks Adopts Diamond 108Mini For Upcoming 10Gigabit PHY Design

Plato Networks has licensed the Diamond Standard 108Mini processor core for an upcoming 10 Gigabit Ethernet physical layer transceiver (PHY) chip design. Plato Networks is developing low-power, single-chip, 10 Gbps physical layer ICs for low-cost copper cabling based on the newly approved IEEE 10GBASE-T standard (802.3an).

“We needed the flexibility of a small 32-bit processor core for the evolving requirements of the 10 Gbps PHY market,” stated Pirooz Hojabri, vice president of engineering, Plato Networks. “The Diamond Standard 108Mini was the perfect fit from a size, power, code density, and cost perspective.”

For more information, see http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2007_02_12.htm

Tensilica to Showcase Mobile Phones Featuring Its Audio and Video Processors at 3GSM

Tensilica, Inc. will be showcasing mobile phones incorporating its audio and video processors at its booth at the 3GSM World Congress (Hall 2, Level 1, Booth 2.1A67) in Barcelona, Spain, February 12-15, 2007. Tensilica is the leading IP (intellectual property) supplier for mobile multimedia (audio and video) processor cores with its HiFi 2 Audio Engine, its Xtensa configurable processors, and its Diamond Standard VDO (video) family. Tensilica will showcase phones from Cingular, LG Electronics, Motorola, and Samsung that include Tensilica processor cores performing audio and video encoding and decoding.

For more information, see http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2007_02_07.htm

AM3D’s 3D Mobile Handset Audio Now Available for HiFi 2 Audio Engine

AM3D’s Zirene Audio Enhancement and Diesel Power MobileTM 3D Audio products are now available for Tensilica’s HiFi 2 Audio Engine and Diamond Standard 330HiFi processor core. Tensilica’s HiFi 2 Audio Engine with AM3D’s 3D audio will be demonstrated at the 3GSM Conference in Barcelona February 12-15 in Hall 2, Level 1, booths 2.1A67 (Tensilica) and 2.1B72 (AM3D).

“AM3D’s 3D audio products provide outstanding audio quality, 3D and special effects for mobile phones and portable music players,” stated Larry Przywara, Tensilica’s director of mobile multimedia products. “By adding AM3D’s audio software to our HiFi 2 product line, we can provide one programmable engine that runs all of the best-in-class audio software.”

For more information, see http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2007_02_06.htm

LG Electronics Licenses Tensilica’s Diamond Standard 330HiFi For High Quality Audio in Mobile TV Chipset

LG Electronics of Korea has licensed Tensilica’s Diamond Standard 330HiFi Audio Engine, the industry’s most popular audio processor core for cellular handsets. LG Electronics will use the Diamond Standard 330HiFi Audio Engine in next-generation mobile TV chipset designs.

LG Electronics currently uses Tensilica’s Xtensa processors for video and control processing in their Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB) phone.

“We picked Tensilica’s Diamond Standard 330HiFi Audio Engine for three main reasons: low power, availability of a wide range of audio codecs, and our strong relationship with Tensilica’s technology in our DMB group,” stated Dr. Woo-Hyun Paik, Vice President of LG. “Tensilica’s Audio Engine is a proven solution, ready to drop into our next-generation designs.”

For more information, see http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2007_02_05_LG.htm

S2C Becomes Newest Tensilica Prototyping Partner in China

Tensilica announced a new SOC prototyping partnership with S2C Inc., a leading provider of innovative FPGA-based ESL (electronic system level) and SOC prototyping solutions with a rapidly growing presence in the China market. S2C has already deployed Tensilica’s Diamond Standard 108Mini processor core into its TAI Logic Module FPGA-based ESL platform, and is working on a reference design and demonstration platform for Tensilica’s popular Diamond Standard 330HiFi Audio core.

“S2C will be a valuable partner in helping us speed up the adoption of our Diamond Standard processors in China,” stated Steve Roddy, Tensilica’s vice president of marketing. “Customers will be able to rapidly evaluate and implement our processor cores into their SOC prototypes that can run at near-real time and real time speeds and accelerate hardware/software co-design.”

For more information, see http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2007_02_05_S2C.htm

Tensilica Licenses Xtensa LX2 Configurable Processor to Marvell

Marvell has taken a company-wide license to Tensilica’s Xtensa® LX2 configurable processor. This agreement was driven in part by Marvell’s successful use of Tensilica’s earlier Xtensa processors in high-volume printer applications, Yukon® gigabit Ethernet products, and LinkStreet® router products. Marvell plans to use the Xtensa LX2 configurable processor in various products throughout the company.

“By using Tensilica’s Xtensa processors in three very high-volume product lines, Marvell is able to take advantage of the extreme flexibility that these configurable processors provide for our design teams,” stated Alan Armstrong, vice president of marketing for Marvell’s Storage Business Group. “Our design teams will be able to deploy Tensilica processors in a broad range of roles, including many non-traditional design sockets within datapath and dataplane functions.”

For more information, see http://www.tensilica.com/news_events/pr_2007_02_01.htm