Rapport Inc said it would launch a mobile chip that is up to 10 times faster than existing processors yet uses less than one tenth the power.
Rapport’s Kilocore technology, which sprung from seven years’ research at Carnegie Mellon and an exclusive, global license inked in early 2005, has the potential to turn the mobile semiconductor industry on its head.
Rather than take the dual- and quad-core approach – championed by Advanced Micro Devices and Intel – Rapport has designed a chip with 1,025 processing cores. Unlike AMD and Intel’s 64-bit silicon, each of Rapport’s chips is a tiny 8-bit processor.
We are operating and running low clock speeds, so there is very small thermal power … but lots of computation, said Rapport president Frank Sinton.
One difference between a Kilocore and, say, an Intel Pentium is that 65% of fabric of a Kilocore is used for computing versus 25% or less with a typical Pentium, Sinton said.
Intel is happy with putting two or four processors on a chip and we’re doing a thousand, Stinton quipped.
Notably, Kilocore-based processors act independently, which requires parallel programming rather than sequential programming language, such as C, used by more traditional chips. Parallel programming means being able to have, say, 32 simultaneous web searches running at once in 32 different windows.
Most likely, early applications of chiliad-core chips will be smoother, high-definition streaming video on small handheld device, such as cell phones or PDAs.
Rapport’s first product, the KC256, launched in February and has 256 processors for 25GB operations per second at well under a single watt of power. The silicon measures just 50 square millimeters, which is typical for mobile applications.
By mid-2007, the beefier 1,025-processor, which will be the third generation of Kilocore, will launch, Stinton said.
The 1,024 Kilocore processors will take on the high computational stuff, such as video or image processing, while the PowerPC will handle more sequential functions, Stinton said. He declined to give benchmark speeds for the PowerPC in this environment, but emphasized that in combination with the Kilocores, it was a very efficient architecture.
In the meantime, Rapport has released development packages for the 256-Kilocore chip that also can be used to build applications for the forthcoming 1,024-Kilocore-with-PowerPC chip. Expect application development announcements during the next six months, Stinton said. Current customers include consumer electronics OEMs, government agencies and defense contractors, but Stinton declined to name any of them.
Candidates for the 1,025-core chip include WiFi VoIP phones with Bluetooth and high-level security. Indeed, multi-function Internet appliances are initial target apps for Rapport, such as ultramobile PCs, including those being spawned from Microsoft’s Origami project, Stinton said.
We’re not replacing the general purpose processor, he said. But we are a multipurpose and multifunction processor … and software defines its use in applications.
However, he Kilocore chip is unlike an application specific integrated circuit or field programmable chip. Rather, the Kilocore reprograms itself with every clock cycle, or within a matter of nanoseconds. It certainly saves on time to market, Stinton said.
And because the chip is multifunction, it can be churned out in volume and with relatively high profit margins. It’s going into large applications with high margins, so we expect revenues to ramp quickly and to be profitable in 2007, Stinton said.
For IBM, the Rapport collaboration will mean the first commercially available PowerPC-driven mobile devices, said Jesse Stein, marketing programs manger for Power.org for IBM.
Stein said he’s seen a few prototypes of a PowerPC in Linux-based PDAs, but knows of none making it to market or of any PowerPC-driven cell phones. The PowerPC is a fairly powerful technology and has been a little bit of overkill for the market, he said.
But the company expects Rapport may change all that. IBM also is considering licensing Kilocore for IBM’s application specific integrated circuit designs, to become part of IBM’s own custom chips, Stein said.
The move to license PowerPC may prove shrewd for Rapport, which has slightly more than 20 workers in its Redwood City, California headquarters and just $7m venture capital in its coffers.
Our chip accelerates PowerPC applications. So, it’s not lost on us that there’s 15,000 PowerPC developers out there and as many applications using PowerPC, Stinton said.
Of course, the IBM deal is not exclusive, and Rapport sees PowerPC as just one market it will target.
Rapport, which formed in 2001, is now seeking as much as $20m in a second VC round, which Stinton said is targeted to close in the third quarter. He said a likely exit strategy would be either IPO or acquisition.
Just how Rapport will change the competitive landscape for mobile processors remains to be seen. It’s probably too early to tell, said IBM’s Stein. But it certainly puts a very interesting stake in the ground for that market.
