Happy Holidays from Tensilica

 

Click here for our holiday e-card.

Tensilica to Feature Customer Innovations in Smartphones and Home Entertainment at CES 2013

Tensilica’s booth with a demo area and three meeting rooms is located in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center in Meeting Room 25060. To schedule a meeting, please email paula@tensilica.com.
Tensilica will be featuring its audio and baseband DSPs. Among Tensilica’s demonstrations will be:
-          Voice trigger and voice commands using the HiFi Audio DSP.
-          Fujitsu’s F-12C Smartphones with integrated HiFi Audio.
-          The latest Smartphones for NTT Docomo’s 4G LTE network in Japan, which use Tensilica DSPs for the LTE communications.
-          Samsung’s 3D Blu-ray Disc™ player with HiFi Audio for 5.1-channel surround sound.
-          HD radios with HiFi Audio.
-          Samsung’s DTVs with HiFi Audio.
See press release.

Tensilica is Ready for IC-CAD Conference in China

Tensilica's LTE Demo is up and running - we're ready for the IC-CAD conference in Chongqiang, China. This demo is really cool - A live FPGA board based demonstration of a transmitter (eNodeB) PHY layer implemented with Tensilica cores and a handset PHY layer implemented with Tensilca cores. The demonstration shows a download to the handset of two 1080p HD movies and playback on big LCD monitors.

Tensilica Hits Major Milestone: 200 Licensees for Dataplane Processor IP Cores

“Reaching the 200^th licensee mark is another testimonial to our growing success. The universe of potential Tensilica licensees and applications addressed by Tensilica is much larger than that of other signal processor licensing companies since our products can range from tiny, micro DPUs to state-of-the-art, high-performance DSPs,” stated Jack Guedj, Tensilica’s president and CEO.  “A growing number of customers are adopting Tensilica IP cores because they can get a significant reduction in time-to-market using our complete hardware and software subsystem solutions for audio and baseband signal processing and our state-of-the-art software programming tools.”
Read the press release.

Tne Tensilica Lobby Wall is Finished

And it looks great! This is what you see when you walk in our lobby at Tensilica.

Tensilica and mimoOn Partner to Provide the Only Comprehensive LTE and LTE-Advanced Hardware-Software PHY IP Solution

Through an agreement between mimoOn and Tensilica, Tensilica is now the exclusive DSP IP vendor for mimoOn’s LTE UE (user equipment) and eNodeB (base station) physical layer (PHY) software products. See press release for more details.

Sign Up Now for Tensilica's Seminar in Israel Dec. 5

"Getting More Efficient, Lower Power DSP IP Cores For Your SOC Designs" -
Tensilica's Seminar at the Dan Accadia Hotel in Herzliya on December 5, 2012 -
Sign up now. See the full agenda and the sign-up form on our web site.

Inside Tensilica's New Lobby - We picked Blue

Yes, we picked the blue paint and this is the result. It goes really well with the logo and the blue in the carpet. But wait, there's more to come. We have additional signage that will be installed late next week.

Inside Tensilica's new lobby. What color should be paint this wall?

Maybe blue? Orange might be too strong. Trying to decide.

All Tensilica White Papers, All the Time

Check our our new web site's learning center and the page full of white papers. You'll see interesting white papers on audio, DSP, and our base Xtensa technology.

Tensilica's New HQ in Santa Clara

It's official. Yesterday the new sign went up outside Tensillica's new headquarters building in Santa Clara. We've moved across the street to a much larger, nicer building. Address is 3393 Octavius Dr., Santa Clara, CA 95054. Phone numbers remain the same.

Tensilica is Moving this Weekend

We're moving across the street to 3393 Octavius Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95054. Our phone numbers remain the same. The moving crew starts at 5 tonight. Computers are down from 8-8 Pacific time tomorrow. Can't wait to unpack on Monday!

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at Tensilica's New HQ Today

CEO Jack Guedj and Sr. VP Engineering Beatrice Fu do the ribbon cutting at Tensilica's new HQ. We'll be moving this weekend to 3393 Octavius Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95054 - a much larger 2-story building right across the street. Today was preview day, so we could see our new offices before the move.

Tensilica Licensees Ship Two Billion IP Cores; License Revenue Now Larger than Any Other DSP Licensing Company

Tensilica's licensees have recorded shipments of over two billion Tensilica DPUs and are now shipping at a run rate of approximately 800 million Tensilica DPU IP cores per year, which is more than a 50 percent increase over the run rate announced in June 2011, when the company reached its one billionth core shipment.

“Our growth has exceeded our plans and we reached the two billion milestone a quarter ahead of our projections,” stated Jack Guedj, Tensilica’s president and CEO. “Similarly, we’ve seen continuing and sustained increases in license revenues as more and more tier 1 semiconductor and systems companies adopt our DPU/DSP products. Our growth is due to the fact our DPUs provide better performance/power/area than classic DSPs and are scalable from function-specific micro signal and control processors to large general-purpose DSPs.”  See press release.

MegaChips Selects Tensilica’s HiFi Audio/Voice DSP for Consumer Products Designs

“We selected Tensilica’s HiFi DSP for our customers because it was the best choice in the market,” stated Gen Sasaki, director/officer, general manager Division No. 2, MegaChips. “HiFi has been designed into hundreds of products, already has over 100 software packages ported to it, and can be used for everything from power-sensitive portable devices to home entertainment.” See press release.

DTS Announces Enhanced Audio for Tensilica HiFi Audio/Voice DSP Cores

DTS is always working on ways to enhance the listening environment. Two of DTS' latest audio enhancement suites for the TV and PC markets are now available:

• DTS Studio Surround - for flat panel TV architectures
• DTS Premium Sound - for Windows-based devices

Read the press release.

Read "Parallism and Specialization Drive Growth" by Chris Rowen for Microprocessor Report's special 25th anniversary article on The Future of Microprocessors

Reprinted by permission from The Linley Group, Chris Rowen's write-up explores where we'll get the next big increase in computation throughput.  Read his write-up.

Excellent Interview of Tensilica CTO Chris Rowen

Chris discusses the rise of the RISC architecture, founding of MIPS, his ideas that started Tensilica, and more.
Read interview.

Tensilica Reaches Audio/Voice DSP Milestone: Most Widely Licensed Audio Architecture for SOC Design

Tensilica has licensed its HiFi Audio/Voice DSPs to over 50 corporations worldwide, making it the most widely licensed audio architecture for SOC design. The HiFi architecture has been designed into smartphones, tablets, personal computers, notebook computers, digital video and still cameras, Blue-ray Disc players, digital terrestrial and satellite radios, automobiles, and game consoles. It is used by half of the top 20 tier one semiconductor companies and numerous systems companies.
See press release.

Have you seen Tensilica's new web site?

Please visit http://www.tensilica.com/ and see what we've done. I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Optimized Port of micro-T-Kernel RTOS Now Available for Tensilica’s DPUs

µT-Kernel is ideal for embedded systems that require a very efficient, compact, and flexible RTOS. It provides excellent real-time performance with a small memory footprint.
Read the press release.

Tensilica HiFi Audio/Voice DSP Licensed to Renesas Electronics

"We selected the HiFi Audio DSP for its power-efficient and small-area architecture, the availability of a wide range of fully optimized codecs from Tensilica, and the best software development tools," stated Hiromi Watanabe, general manager of SoC Software Platform Division, SoC Business Unit, Renesas Electronics Corporation. "We were also impressed with its proven track record with high-volume applications and its large third-party ecosystem.  By utilizing the resources of such third-party partners, we will be able to support our customers' wide-ranging needs." See press release.

SemiWiki article: I/O Bandwidth with Tensilica Cores

First, a little plug for SemiWiki. It's one of the best sources of information on the Internet, with articles written by industry veterans who really understand IP and semiconductor design. Most recently they reviewed one of Tensilica's best capabilities - the option to bypass the bus entirely and stream data right into the processor. No other processor core can do this. Read more about it here.

Novatek in Volume Production with Three New Home Entertainment SOCs Using Tensilica HiFi Audio DSP

"We selected the HiFi Audio DSP because it was the most proven, complete solution available, with all of the audio software we needed already ported and optimized for the architecture," stated JH Chang, Senior Vice President, Novatek. "This was the right decision as we were able to quickly incorporate the HiFi Audio DSP into our designs and get these three chips into volume production."

Read the press release.

Tensilica Celebrates at Company Picnic

Last Friday, Tensilica's Santa Clara-based employees enjoyed a great afternoon at Saratoga Springs. What perfect weather and a great crowd.

Inband Software Offers DSP Development Services for Tensilica Customers

Inband Software can assist in algorithm development, fixed-point conversion, and optimization for Tensilica's HiFi Audio/Voice DSPs and other architectures. Inband Software has experience in a variety of DSP applications including audio and voice codecs, image processing, and digital communications and the company collaborated with Tensilica in the development of several speech codecs, such as G.711, G.726 and G.722, as well as various packet loss concealment modules. See press release.

15 Years!

Yesterday Tensilica celebrated 15 years (to the day) from when founder Chris Rowen files the first papers to start the company. Between lunch and a wonderful cake and champagne celebration, Chris led us on a trip down memory lane, including a trivia quiz (with nice gift card prizes).

Tensilica Joins Wi-Fi Alliance to Provide Wireless Multi-Standard Modem Solutions

Tensilica has joined the Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry consortium dedicated to driving adoption of Wi-Fi and device interoperability. Tensilica, already a leading IP supplier of multi-standard 3G/ LTE and LTE-Advanced modem cores and applications software, also has leading customers using the Tensilica dataplane  processors (DPUs) for some of the older Wi-Fi standards. Now Tensilica plans to integrate Wi-Fi with its multi-standard radio capabilities.  Several of Tensilica's DPUs are ideal for Wi-Fi, including the popular ConnX D2 and the BBE DSP (digital signal processor) product family. Read the rest of the press release.

Will your next TV have Tensilica HiFi Audio inside?

Good changes it will. Samsung and LG are using Tensilica's HiFi Audio DSPs in their newest generations of digital TVs.

Featuring Computers with Tensilica Inside the AMD Radeon UVD Graphics

What do the Apple iMac, Apple MacBook Pro, HP laptops, Lenovo IdeaPad, Toshiba Satellite, Acer Aspire, and a host of desktops have in common? They all use Tensilica's DPUs to accelerate the video stream in AMD's Radeon UVD graphics.

BlackBerry Bold 9790 - With Tensilica's HiFi Inside

Highlighting products that use Tensilica. Today's choice is the BlackBerry Bold 9790 with Tensilica's HiFi audio DSP inside. Great reviews on Amazon.

Tensilica White Paper: 7 Critical Questions to Ask when Adding Audio to your SOC Design

In  a high-stakes game, the selection of an audio solution for each mobile SOC is a major decision. The wrong decision is decidedly perilous for two major reasons.
1.       The wrong decision will harm playback quality that can be obvious when the end products is demonstrated to the customer.
2.       The wrong decision will shorten battery life and will either make the end product less competitive because it's talk time or playback time will be shorter than the competition or because the end product must be larger and heavier than the competition to accommodate a larger battery.
Read the white paper for more information.

Tensilica Doubles DSP Shipments, Ranks Second in DSP IP Market According to The Linley Group

Tensilica is now ranked second in shipments of chips containing DSP IP cores for 2011 by The Linley Group, the industry's leading source for independent technology analysis of semiconductors for networking, mobile, and wireless. Tensilica attributes this growth to its focus on dataplane signal processing and strong unit volumes in smart phones, home entertainment, and communications LTE infrastructure. Shipments of devices with Tensilica DSP cores roughly doubled from 2010 to 2011. See the full press release.

Don't Forget! Two More DAC Panels with Tensilica

IP Packaging – What’s in it for me? - This panel will discuss the pros and cons of IP standardization from various perspectives and explore the rate of adoption of the IP-XACT standard.
Grant Martin, chief scientist, Tensilica
Wednesday, June 6, 2:30 p.m.
Duolog Booth #1520

It’s the Software, Stupid! Truth or Myth – Industry experts will debate three opposing views on the importance of software in product differentiation.
Dr. Chris Rowen, founder and CTO, Tensilica
Thursday, June 7, 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
Booth #305

Tensilica is in Two Panels at DAC in SF Tomorrow

Hogan's Heroes: Learning from Apple - Panelists will discuss what the electronics industry has learned from Apple.
Jack Guedj, president and CEO, Tensilica
Tuesday, June 5, 10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Booth #310

System Models -- Does One Size Fit All? - Panelists will review different aspects of system modeling and discuss which abstraction levels best address specific user requirements.
Andrea Kroll, senior product specialist, Tensilica
Tuesday, June 5, 1:30 - 3:00 p.m.
Booth #305

Tensilica White Paper: TIE - The Fast Path to High Performance Embedded SOC Processing

There's a powerful way to optimize an Xtensa processor-through a processor-description language called TIE, Tensilica's Instruction Extension language. TIE is a simple way to make Xtensa processor cores faster and more efficient by adding new task-optimized instructions and I/O interfaces.

This short White Paper introduces the core ideas behind TIE. You'll see that TIE looks a lot like Verilog, but anyone can learn the basics of TIE in a few minutes whether they already know how to write Verilog descriptions or not. Just a few lines of TIE can make a dramatic difference in an Xtensa processor's performance and flexibility for targeted tasks. Xtensa processors with TIE customizations can compute and move data tens or hundreds of times faster than conventional processor cores. As a result, your SOC gets smaller, cheaper, and faster and it will consume less power.

Tensilica's CEO Jack Guedj on Hogan's Heroes DAC Panel Next Tuesday

Jim Hogan brings together an A-list of industry luminaries to discuss "Learning from Apple" at 10 am next Tuesday in booth 310. We assume his panel will be standing room only as it always is one of the big highlights of DAC. See you there!

Why is there a For Lease sign in front of Tensilica's HQ?

Because we're growing like crazy and we've finally outgrown our building! We're moving to a much bigger 2-story building across the street mid-July.

Tensilica Discusses Importance of Customizable IP Subsystems at Semico IMPACT Conference

This Wednesday from 3-4:15 pm, Steve Roddy will participate in a panel discussion titled, "Will IP Subsystems Help Reduce Complexity... At What Cost?" at Semico's IMPACT Conference: Focus on The IP Ecosystem. The panel will look at the evolution of complex SoC architectures and the role of IP subsystems in this growth.
Need a ticket? Let me know. Details on the conference are here.

Tensilica and VWorks Partner to Provide Virtual Prototyping Platforms

As part of the collaboration, Tensilica's DPU models are integrated with the VLAB virtual platform simulation environment from VWorks, providing early access, high performance and direct software debug capability. Software and services are provided by VWorks and its service partner ASTC.
See press release.

Tensilica and Sensory Working on Hands-free Voice

Tensilcia and Sensory are working on HW/SW technology that will allow you to say commands to your smartphone - even if it is turned off. Imagine what this could do for disabled people. Read the article.

See Tensilica at the ChipEx Conference in Israel May 1-2

Stop by the Tensilica booth if you're going to the ChipEx Conference in Israel. This is Tensilica's first time exhibiting at this conference, and we're very excited. Israel is a key market for us and we just hired our first field application engineer in Israel, who will be working in our booth. Stop by and say hello.

Tensilica Expands Dataplane Processor R&D Center in Pune, India

Tensilica plans to increase headcount by at least 50 percent in the next year. Over the past six years, employees at Tensilica's Pune R&D center have become essential developers of Tensilica's dataplane processors (DPUs), which are used by chip designers to perform complex signal processing tasks, such as audio and baseband processing.

"The engineers in our Pune design center are an integral part of our R&D team, and they've tackled some of the most demanding projects," stated Jack Guedj, Tensilica's president and CEO. "We've asked them to take on several challenges and they've proven they have the background to do an excellent job in many engineering areas."
See press release

Tensilica Adds Support for Dynamic Resolution Adaptation Audio Standard to HiFi Audio DSP Library

We've added support for the Dynamic Resolution Adaptation (DRA) standard. Now all products that include the HiFi Audio DSPs can be used to support the standard approved by the People's Republic of China as the National Audio Standard (GB/T 22726-2008) for multi-channel audio decoding. Tensilica has delivered the HiFi DRA decoder to a number of Tier 1 system OEMs and semiconductor companies.
See press release.

Tensilica Reaches Audio DSP Milestones: 300 Million HiFi Audio/Voice DSPs, Over 100 Software Packages, More Than 30 Partners

"The 300-million milestone is just the tip of the iceberg," stated Larry Przywara, Tensilica's senior director of multimedia marketing. "By 2014 we expect to ship approximately one billion HiFi cores a year. The need to support a wide range of software packages, and the large costs associated with the support and maintenance, has resulted in many companies deciding to use our standard audio/voice DSPs. Plus, we've automated the process of customizing all of our IP cores so companies can add essential features to differentiate their cores if required."
See press release.

Tensilica Promotes Hiroyuki Uchimura to Managing Director of Japan Office

"I have worked with Uchimura-san for many years and am pleased with the strong contributions he has already made at Tensilica," stated Jerry Ardizzone, Tensilica's vice president of worldwide sales. "Uchimura-san knows our customers well and has extensive experience in both the semiconductor and semiconductor IP licensing markets. He will help continue to grow our business in Japan."

Renesas Licenses Tensilica’s ConnX BBE16 DSP IP Core for Digital Baseband Signal Processing

The ConnX BBE16 DSP IP  core has been licensed to Renesas Electronics Corporation for upcoming products for digital broadcasting receivers. "Renesas is a premier provider of advanced semiconductor solutions and has proven experience in developing products for digital broadcasting receivers. We are proud they have selected our popular ConnX BBE16 DSP core after an extensive evaluation," stated Eric Dewannain, Tensilica's vice president and general manager, Baseband Business Unit. "The ConnX BBE16 DSP is a high-performance, and very efficient, 16-MAC (multiply accumulate) DSP that is ideal for use in products such as home wireless networks, multi-standard broadcast receivers, and digital television demodulators."

Read Tensilica CTO Chris Rowen's Interview in EDN Magazine

From the interview:
Q. What is the biggest challenge facing the business of SOC design for advanced applications?

A: We happen to be doing it with this notion of the application-specific data processor. But the bigger problem we're addressing is: How do we take all of this hypothetical capability in deep-submicron technology-28 and 22 nm? You can build these chips with a billion transistors and turn it into something that's an efficient and unique world-changer in that segment. Then, do that [scenario] over and over again in the hundred subsegments where people build electronics. All these smartphone categories and digital-television categories and home-network categories are enabling simultaneous innovation by teams with different skills. How do we engender and encourage the sort of creativity that can create new leaders in each of these segments?
Read the full interview.

Jobs, Jobs, Job, Tensilica is hiring like crazy

Have you looked at our job listing lately? We are listing 17 jobs in Santa Clara, CA, Pune, India, and Texas. Almost all are engineering positions, though our Finance department is looking for a really good revenue analyst.

See Tensilica CTO Chris Rowen at Linley Mobile Conf. April 16

Power/Performance Breakthrough for LTE-Advanced Handsets
Chris Rowen, CTO, Tensilica
This presentation will overview the computing challenge of multi-standard 3G/4G user-equipment baseband PHY design. The transition from LTE to LTE-Advanced can require up to a 5x increase in algorithm and data rate computation within ever-tighter power budgets. This step-function increase in performance and efficiency demands significant innovation down to the DSP engines themselves. To meet these needs, the BBE32UE DSP core delivers 2-3x the performance of earlier DSP cores already deployed in volume handsets and almost doubles energy efficiency. Using this design, a fully software-programmable, flexible modem for LTE-Advanced user equipment Category 7 PHY can be realized in less than 200 mW (28nm HPL process). Sign up now.

Tensilica is Hiring.

See our complete list of open jobs around the world. The newest job listing is for an imaging systems architect. Know anyone good?

ClariPhy Licenses Tensilica’s Xtensa Dataplane Processor (DPU) for Optical Networking Mixed Signal, Digital Signal Processing (MXSP) SOCs

"We benchmarked other CPU and controller cores and selected Tensilica's Xtensa DPU because it offered us a unique combination of a robust standard architecture with a rich third party ecosystem, plus the ability to configure and extend the core to meet our exact applications need," stated Reza Norouzian, vice president of sales and business development at ClariPhy. "With Tensilica, we are able to leverage the reuse advantages while still reaping the benefits of differentiation arising from customization of the core."

Tensilica HiFi Audio DSP Supports Dolby Digital Plus for Surround Sound on Mobile Devices

Now designers of SOCs  for mobile devices can enable stunning audio settings, including full 5.1-channel HD audio. See press release for details

Tensilica Baseband DSPs and Dataplane Processors (DPUs) Power LTE/HSPA/3G Multimode Modem IC from NTT DOCOMO, Fujitsu, NEC, and Panasonic Consortium

The second-generation multi-mode LTE/HSPA/3G baseband chip design announced last week by NTT DOCOMO features multiple Tensilica dataplane processors (DPUs), including the HiFi Audio DSP and the ConnX BBE16 Baseband DSP. As with the first generation NTT DOCOMO-sponsored design now shipping in volume in cell phones and tablets, this chip was co-developed by industry leaders Fujitsu, Panasonic and NEC.

Arkamys Audio Enhancement Software and Services Being Ported To Tensilica’s HiFi Audio DSPs

Arkamys digital audio software currently is being ported on Tensilica's HiFi Audio DSPs. This set of software is complemented with the availability of audio design and tuning services. Now designers of products for professional entertainment, digital content companies, and the consumer electronics industry - including mobile phones, tablets, MP3 players, car audio and home theaters - can use Arkamys' software solutions on the popular HiFi Audio DSPs.

Sensory and Tensilica Partner to Offer Complete Speech Recognition Subsystem

Sensory's TrulyHandsfree Voice Control is recognized as providing the most accurate speech activation, a real challenge in noisy environments. It allows users to deliver commands from as far as 20 feet away or in high noise conditions, making it an ideal solution for controlling devices while multitasking or in the car where users need to focus on driving.  It provides a voice trigger capability on a local device that can communicate via the cloud to enable complex voice searches and text-to-speech for data retrieval. It allows Siri-like applications to not require a button press to use, which is more convenient in the car and throughout the home. Tensilica and Sensory will be demonstrating their joint audio solution at Tensilica's booth, #1F39 at the Mobile World Congress, February 27 - March 1, in Barcelona, Spain.

Tensilica’s Leadership in Mobile Audio/Voice and Baseband IP Cores Demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2012

 Tensilica's DPU IP cores have recently been designed into leading-edge designs from infrastructure providers (for macrocell, picocell and femtocell basestations) as well as handset providers for audio, LTE radio, Bluetooth and other functions.
The most exciting event at Tensilica's stand #1F39 in Hall 1 will be the live demonstration of the simultaneous download of two 1080p HD movies plus an uplink stream from a video camera. These streams are transmitted using Tensilica's Atlas LTE eNodeB platform and received using Tensilica's Atlas LTE UE (user equipment) SPRs (software programmable radios). This showcases how Tensilica's multi-core reference platforms can offer both flexibility and low power while performing LTE eNB and UE transmit/receive functions in real time, with processing strength to spare. See press release for more details.

Tensilica Lays the Foundation for Software Programmable LTE-Advanced User Equipment PHY (Layer 1) in Less than 200mW

After great success in the LTE (Long-Term Evolution) handset baseband market, Tensilica, Inc. today announced that it is driving the transition to LTE-Advanced and has already secured lead customers for its new product - the ConnX BBE32UE DSP (digital signal processor) IP core for baseband SOC (system-on-chip) designs. Using the ConnX BBE32UE DSP core, coupled with Tensilica Baseband Dataplane processors (DPUs), a fully software programmable, flexible modem for LTE-Advanced user equipment category 7 PHY (Layer 1) can be realized in less than 200mW (28 nm HPL process). It can also support 2G, 3G, LTE and HSPA+ standards. See press release.

VIA Chooses Tensilica for Solid State Drive (SSD) Chip Design

VIA determined that Tensilica's DPUs provide over four times the performance of competing processors on key algorithms used to benchmark competitive alternatives.

SSDs require faster and more efficient data management and manipulation to increase their throughput (measured in Input/Output Operations per Second, or IOPS). With conventional processors, increasing the clock speed is the common way to increase performance. However, this increases energy consumption and die size, especially as speeds increase so much that designers are forced to move to more complex multi-core solutions.

Tensilica's DPUs allow designers to customize the IP core, mix both control and signal processing, and add high-bandwidth connectivity to increase performance without increasing the clock speed. For example, designers can use single-cycle bit field manipulation and arithmetic instructions along with multiple simultaneous single-cycle table lookups to achieve over 10 times the efficiency of other processors. This not only increases IOPS, but also significantly reduces the energy consumed and the complexity of the SOC design itself.

mimoOn and Tensilica Offer Complete LTE PHY Reference Platform for User Equipment and eNodeB PHY at Mobile World Congress 2012

The efficient software programmable radio demo is built on Tensilica's Atlas LTE reference platform implementing the flagship ConnX BBE16 DSP (digital signal processor) and Tensilica Dataplane Processors (DPUs). It utilizes mimoOn's mi!MobilePHY software for LTE handsets and their LTE Intermediate Library, which has now been ported to Tensilica's ConnX DPUs. The demonstration is software upgradable so it can also support HSPA+ and WiMAX.

Tensilica will show the demo in Booth 1F39 in Hall 1 and mimoOn will show the demo in Pavilion AV109 on the Avenue at the Mobile World Congress, February 27-March 1, in Barcelona, Spain.

Acoustic Technologies Noise Reduction and Echo Cancellation Software Now Available on Maxim’s MAX98095 Based on Tensilica’s HiFi Audio/Voice DSPs

Acoustic Technologies' SoundClear Mobile Voice 2-mic noise elimination and echo cancellation software has been ported to Tensilica's HiFi Audio DSPs, the leading audio/voice DSP IP cores. It has already been implemented on Maxim Integrated Products' Flexsound processor, which includes Tensilica technology, and is commercially available on Maxim's MAX98095, a member of the company's family of TINI CODECs developed for smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other audio and voice-enabled devices. Tensilica and Acoustic Technologies will be demonstrating their joint audio solution, using the MAX98095, at Tensilica's booth, #1F39 at the Mobile World Congress, February 27 - March 1, in Barcelona, Spain.

Tensilica's Newest Partner - Sonics - With On-Chip Networks

Sonics now supports Tensilica PIF, making it much easier to use Sonics' on-chip networks for SOC design. See the press release for full details.

Have You Watched the Video of Tensilica CTO Chris Rowen?

How can you make software better? Chris Rowen and others discuss different techniques. And yes, there are many ways. See the video.

Shanghai HDIC Picks Tensilica’s HiFi Audio DSP For Digital Television System-on-Chip

"We picked Tensilica's HiFi Audio because it has become the industry standard for audio DSP," stated Dr. Jun Sun, president of HDIC. "HiFi Audio provides superior performance and smaller size/power and is proven in millions of products. Moreover, Tensilica has the most complete library with over 90 audio codecs readily available."

White Paper: How to Manage Video Frame-Processing Time Deviations in ASIC and SOC Video Processors

Some video frames take longer to process than others because of the nature of digital video compression. These wide variations in video-processing time make correct operation of an ASIC or SOC video-processing system unpredictable. A video processor that minimizes processing-time variations in for each video frame enables the design of a more reliable and less expensive system that also consumes less power. Read the white paper.

NXP Picks Tensilica's ConnX Baseband Engine

NXP Semiconductors was the lead partner for Tensilica's first ConnX Baseband Engine (BBE), announced on June 22, 2009. NXP Semiconductors, as the global leader for car entertainment systems, has successfully fabricated the ConnX Baseband Engine DSP in its automotive multi-standard software defined radio innovation platform, a highly flexible baseband processor for satellite and terrestrial digital radio and mobile HDTV (high-definition television) as well as car2X communication. In the latter application, the processor is deployed in multiple Intelligent Traffic System Field Trials around the globe.

"Tensilica presented us with an intriguing application for their customizable dataplane processor technology, and we worked with Tensilica to evolve that into a product that worked very well for our requirements. We needed a DSP that went well beyond what else we could find on the market in terms of optimum power/performance/area," stated Andrew Turley, director of innovation for car entertainment, NXP. "NXP and Tensilica worked together to get a truly optimized solution that has the necessary DSP performance to tackle multi-standard next-generation digital radio applications in a small and power-efficient core." See press release.

Highlights of CES Outside the Tensilica Booth

Highlights of CES outside the Tensilica booth:
- LG and Samsung 55-inch OLED TVs - incredible clarity, lower power, so I can't wait until this becomes affordable
- new Android tablets everywhere
- Some new cell phones but nothing that seemed incredibly impressive
- ultra slim Intel-based notebooks that look like the Macbook Air
- Motorola got into the exercise monitoring business
- I actually was 5 feet away from Snookie when she walked by our booth.
- Amazing all the industries that "feed in" and have booths with cell phone covers, cables, DVD distribution, and even a booth from the US Post Office, selling shipping.
- And amazing how large the big booths are, and how crowded they get.

Tensilica Shows Off HiFi 3 at CES

Tensilica's meeting room MP25166 at the Las Vegas Convention Center has been very busy as we showcase customer designs that implement our HiFi 2 Audio DSP (like the Samsung TV, Fujitsu tablet and LTE phones, Samsung Blu-ray Disc player) and an FPGA implementation of our recently announced HiFi 3. If you're still at CES, be sure to stop by today, the last day of the show.