New Cadence Partner offers Voice Processing for Tensilica HiFi Audio DSPs

Fortemedia's groundbreaking voice processing solution, iS600, is now available optimized for Cadence's Tensilica® HiFi DSPs. The iS600 high performance voice processing technology dramatically improves user experience in voice communication and voice recognition for smart phones. In the past, such performance was only available with a custom dedicated DSP that had enough devoted bandwidth and memory. With iS600, a superior solution can be available on a licensable DSP which is already integrated in many equipment including smartphones, tablets, Digital TV, STB, Blu-ray Disc players, Car Entertainment Systems and Lap Top/Desktop Computers. See the rest of their press release.

AMD's new True Audio features Cadence Tensilica HiFi Audio DSPs

Read the interview with AMD’s Carl Wakeland. Wakeland is a Fellow Design Engineer and considered the “author” of TrueAudio. TrueAudio includes one HiFi EP and two HiFi 2 DSPs.

Cadence adds Dolby and DTS SW for Tensilica HiFi Audio DSPs

Cadence announced that it was the first company to offer an IP core solution supporting Dolby Digital Plus with DS1 and DTS Neural Surround.

The Dolby DS1 for Dolby Digital Plus is for applications in mobile devices such as handsets and tablets as well as any infotainment system with small speakers, like ultra-slim flat-panel TVs. Dolby DS1 for Digital Plus is optimized to provide mobile users with home theater-inspired sound quality by enabling a distortion-free audio/voice boost and also by compensating for unintelligible dialogue, extreme volume variation, and deficiencies inherent in the small speakers and low-power amplifiers on most mobile devices. See press release.

DTS Neural Surround brings a home theater-like experience to automobiles and A/V receivers, significantly enhancing the sound quality of upmixing from compressed media types like MP3. Many recent sports and music broadcasts, including Rolling Stones concerts and the 2013 Super Bowl, were broadcast in DTS Neural Surround to ensure that fans received the highest level quality audio. See press release.

Dialog Semiconductor Licenses Cadence's Industry-Leading Tensilica HiFi Audio/Voice DSP IP

“Sound quality, performance and low power architecture are critical contributors to our reputation and success with our leading customers,” said Mark Tyndall, vice president of corporate development and strategy at Dialog. “The Cadence Tensilica HiFi Audio/Voice DSP delivers in all these areas and has a comprehensive software partner ecosystem, which is essential for the connectivity and portable device markets we serve.”
Read more here.

Today's moving day! Tensilica employees are moving to the Cadence campus

It's work-from-home days while the trucks move our stuff over to the Cadence campus. Our new office address is 2655 Seely Avenue, Building 8, San Jose, CA 95134. The main phone number is 408-943-1234. And our Tensilica email addresses will still work, so you can easily get in touch with us.

Cadence's Building 10 - You can't miss it from Montague Expressway in San Jose

\

Renesas Licenses Cadence’s Tensilica ConnX D2 DSP for Next-Generation IoT Chip

Combined with the special acceleration packages optimized for IoT wired and wireless modem standards, the ConnX D2 DSP was selected because it met the low-power, small-size and high-performance requirements for Renesas’ new chip, with extra headroom for future standards. The acceleration packages enable a 10X power/performance improvement over the standard ConnX D2 performance.
Read press release.

MStar Licenses Tensilica IP Core from Cadence

“By leveraging the capabilities of the Xtensa DPU, we were able to better optimize our design for higher efficiency,” stated WK Chia, Vice President of Research and Development, MStar. “As a result, we were able to further enhance our home entertainment platform and provide our customers with more cost-efficient solutions.”
Read the press release.

Cadence Tensilica DPU Featured in new GEO Semiconductor Geometric Processing IC for Ultra-Wide Angle Cameras and Pico Projector Based Heads-Up displays

"The GW3300 integrates GEO’s patented eWARP® core and a Tensilica® CPU with parallel and MIPI interfaces on both inputs and outputs. The GW3300’s fully programmable geometry processing engine can correct for complex lens distortion, perspective and rotational misalignment, as well as brightness nonuniformityin real time with as low as 1/6 frame of latency." See GEO's press release.

Cadence First to Demo Complete M-PCIe PHY and Controller Solution at MIPI and PCI-SIG Conferences

One of the hottest (or should I say coolest – because low power is so important) new standards is PCI Express® (PCIe) over M-PHY, or M-PCIe.  To implement it properly, it’s essential that the controller and PHY work well together as the interface specification between them is, to put it mildly, loosely defined. 

Our booth was jammed at the PCI-SIG conference, and our demo of a complete PHY and controller for mobile PCI Express was very impressive.  Find out more on the Cadence blog.

What Cadence's Acquisition of Evatronix Brings to the IP Party

Cadence's expanding IP portfolio now includes Evatronix.  They bring some great IP products to the Cadence mix, including USB solutions, NAND Flash IP, SD Host 4.0, MIPI SLIMbus IP, and an 8051 controller.  Find out more by reading this blog.

Cadence Fellow and Ex Tensilica Founder and CTO Chris Rowen Interviewed about Cadence Acquisition by New Electronics

"He describes the acquisition by Cadence as a watershed advance in the eda and IP business. It is, he believes 'unique in the industry', meshing as it does Tensilica's strengths in assessing a design's system architecture, the functionality, the algorithms needed to run in silicon to accomplish a particular task and how to put all of that together with Cadence's interconnect blocks, design and verification interactions to build the pieces."  Read entire interview here.

See Tensilica in the Cadence Booth at DAC Next Week in Austin

Chris Rowen will be presenting "Goldilocks and the Three Bears of Programmability" in a DAC special session Tuesday 10:30-12.

Steve Roddy will be presenting our new IVP Image/Video processor and Customizable Processor Basics in the Cadence Theater.

And I'll be working the booth near the IP stand. Stop by to play our cool game and win a Samsung tablet or Apple TV. There's a prize for everyone who stops by.

See you there!

See Cadence Fellow Chris Rowen's Presentation on the Tensilica IVP Image/Video Processor

Did you miss Chris' presentation at the Embedded Vision Summit? It's up on YouTube now and you can learn about Porting Applications to High-Performance Imaging DSPs.

See the Tensilica booth at ChipEx 2013 in Israel

Cadence Completes Acquisition of Tensilica

From Cadence's press release:
"Cadence this week completed its previously announced acquisition of Tensilica, Inc., a leader in dataplane processing IP. The cash outlay at closing, after taking into account adjustments for certain costs and an estimated $25 million of cash held by Tensilica at closing, was approximately $326 million. In addition, Cadence assumed certain unvested Tensilica options. Tensilica's configurable dataplane processing units complement industry-standard processor architectures and are optimized for embedded data and signal processing. Tensilica's target markets include mobile wireless, network infrastructure, auto infotainment and home applications. The Tensilica team, led by Jack Guedj, will report to Martin Lund, Cadence's senior vice president of research and development, SOC Realization Group."
See press release.

ComplexIQ Partners with Tensilica for Multimedia over Coax (MoCA) Network Interface

MoCA is becoming the standard for home entertainment networking, including multi-room DVR (digital video recorder), personal content sharing, OTT (over the top) content sharing and IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) applications. Cable, satellite and IPTV suppliers use the MoCA interface to provide multiple streams of HD video, delivering high throughput and high quality service.
See press release.

Inomize Becomes Newest Tensilica Design Center in Israel

“We’re excited to work closely with Tensilica, who is creating a major presence in Israel for many signal processing designs,” stated Udi Shaked, CEO, Inomize. “Tensilica’s ConnX communications DSPs and HiFi audio/voice DSPs are ideal for many companies in Israel doing digital signal processing. Instead of using inflexible, legacy, off-the-shelf DSPs, Tensilica’s customers can customize cores for their exact specifications, letting them run at the lowest power and area while achieving higher performance.  That level of customization is essential for the highly innovative customer base that we serve here in Israel.”  See press release.

Algotochip is Tensilica's Newest Design Center Partner

Algotochip’s patented approach can speed hardware and software design for SOCs in as little as eight weeks. Algotochip guarantees that its SOC meets all the performance specifications made by the customers, and insures that it will be right the first time. See press release.

Tensilica Joins HSA Foundation to Help Establish Standards for Embedded Heterogeneous Computing

Tensilica has joined the HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation, a not-for-profit consortium dedicated to developing architecture specifications that will unlock the performance and power efficiency of parallel computing engines found in many modern devices. Tensilica will contribute its years of experience assisting customers in bringing heterogeneous multicore SoC  designs to market to the development and promotion of standards for parallel computing.
Read press release.

Insightful Article on Cadence Acquisition of Tensilica

"With the existing licensing deals that Tensilica has, Cadence can augment its IP offering. But, potentially, the combination of design tools, in an era where software design is becoming more critical, and the configurable processor concept could bring the sea-of-processors architecture, and the advantages it may bring, just that little bit closer."
Read entire article.