VLSI Technology Inc is adding to its core processor offerings for the embedded market later this month, in order to cover a wider range of the new generation consumer devices now coming to market. VLSI, one of the original investors in Advanced RISC Machines Ltd, will launch 0.25 micron versions of its ARM7 chip cores at the Embedded Systems Conference in Chicago at the end of the month, along with a 0.25 micron OakDSPcore digital signal processor core from its other partner, the DSP Group Inc, an Israeli company with its US base in Santa Clara, California. Ray Slusarczyk, VLSI’s director of marketing for the Embedded Processor Group says a combination of DSP-plus microcontroller chips are needed as the base for low-cost embedded systems used in digital cellular phones, with scalability options for applications such as set-top boxes and scanners. The days are over when engineers had to accept a one-size fits all processor, he said. VLSI has also put the ARM9 processor, which moves the ARM chip to a Harvard architecture, opening up the bus bandwidth, into its future roadmap. Advanced RISC Machines introduced the ARM9 last October (CI No 3,271), and VLSI says the part will give it performance migration to 180 MIPS by the fourth quarter of the year. The enhanced ARM7TDMI in 0.25 micron runs at 90 MIPS. The 0.25 micron Oak+ operates at 130 MIPS and runs on less power. All the new cores are supported by VLSI’s JumpStart software development environments. VLSI now offers its customers various option levels, ranging from the base level cores through to multicore combinations, and up to system on a chip application specific chips.
