Motorola Inc’s M-Core Technology Center is out on the streets touting its new M-Core 32-bit microRISC core architecture (CI No 3,271), which is claims offers very significant savings in power and memory over competitors such as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd’s ARM 7 or Thumb processors. A cellular phone maker going over to using the M-Core RISC, claims the company, would gain a 71% reduction in power usage, and free up some 84Kb of memory. Kyle Harper, manager of wireless markets and programs for the M-Core Semiconductor products sector, says the new architecture fills a gap in Motorola’s semiconductor portfolio between its very high performance 32-bit PowerPC family, and the traditional 8-bit and 16-bit 68000 line, recently updated as the 68Koldfire range. While there will be overlaps, particularly with the PowerPC for embedded applications, the M-Core architecture has been expressly designed for the ‘users on the go’ or mobile market, for applications such as pagers, mobile phones, handheld computer devices and hand-held GPS satellite positioning systems. For these applications, which are largely consumer driven, power consumption, heat dissipation and therefore memory efficiency or code density are principal considerations, as, of course, is cost. However, there is an ever increasing demand for very high run-time performance, as applications even on devices such as pagers, become more and more sophisticated. Harper says because M-Core has been built from the ground up for these applications, it has the advantage over ‘ten-year-old technology’ such as the ARM technology, which Harper claims inevitably has to compromise one of the key features in the power consumption/cost/memory efficiency ratio. To optimize the reach of its new architecture, the company restructured its semiconductor products sector into market-based business units, which include Transportation Systems, Networking & Computing Systems, Wireless Subscriber Systems, Consumer Systems and the Semiconductor components group. These business units then share technology coming from the company’s centers of excellence, which focus on technology such as the M-Core architecture, DSP digital signal processing and the 68000 line of processors. Externally, the company says it is putting in place a number of multi-level licensing agreements. It won’t name names yet, but says it will license the M-Core architecture to the likes of semiconductor vendors, fabless chip designers, CAD computer-aided design tools vendors, distributors and anyone that can help it take M-Core into new markets and new geographical areas. Harper says new application areas are emerging all the time, for example in automotive engine control, where M-Core’s low heat output is a distinct advantage. Also in the automotive sector, there is a growing demand for far more intelligent systems controlling when and how an air-bag is deployed in a crash, and because connection to the car’s main battery tends to be the first thing to be severed, the air-bag systems need to run off a very low-powered capacitor. The company also claims it has designed its new architecture with sufficient headroom to enable long-term product development. Of course the company to watch now in the embedded market is Intel Corp, which now has Digital Equipment Corp’s StrongARM under its belt (CI No 3,277). Harper admits Motorola has no idea what Intel intends to do with StrongARM, but it is watching and waiting to find out, he says.
