STMicroelectronics NV. the Franco-Italian chipmaker, has teamed up with Hewlett-Packard Co in a joint R&D agreement to develop a platform based on very long instruction word (VLIW) technology. The deal is designed to combine HP’s VLIW expertise with STMicro’s system-on-a-chip capability to offer customers a high degree of automation to cut development and chip costs and speed time to market.
Initial applications are likely to be in the imaging and video markets. STMicro and HP Labs have been working on the project for the past two years to develop the basic technology and work will now center on scalability and compiler technology for customizable VLIW technology.
The two companies claim their approach will create a new standard in system on a chip design with a customized processor architecture, along with the associate tool chain, which can be generated with a high degree of automation from analysis of the proposed application. By allowing many functions to be implemented as software algorithms, rather than hardware circuitry, a customized VLIW-based device offers greater flexibility, they argue.
By linking with a leader in VLIW technology, STMicro sees the deal as a way of broadening its portfolio of RISC, CISC and DSP cores. Development of new chip technologies is now so expensive, that joint development agreements between major manufacturers have become increasingly common.
