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.