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The future of mobile gaming at GDC 2013 and elsewhere
Laszlo Kishonti at MWC 2013 (see the video embedded later, as well as the CLBenchmark data supporting the below statement):
[1:20] Currently Mali T-600 is the first and only GPU which can run this desktop grade software. [1:27]
The Great Equalizer 3: How Fast is Your Smartphone/Tablet in PC GPU Terms [AnandTech, April 4, 2013]
… At the end of the day I’d say it’s safe to assume the current crop of high-end ultra mobile devices [T604 based Nexus 10, Adreno 320 as in Nexus 4, Tegra 3 T33 @1.6GHz as in HTC One X+] can deliver GPU performance similar to that of mid to high-end GPUs from 2006.
The caveat there is that we have to be talking about performance in workloads that don’t have the same memory bandwidth demands as the games from that same era. While compute power has definitely kept up (as has memory capacity), memory bandwidth is no where near as good as it was on even low end to mainstream cards from that time period. For these ultra mobile devices to really shine as gaming devices, it will take a combination of further increasing compute as well as significantly enhancing memory bandwidth. Apple (and now companies like Samsung as well) has been steadily increasing memory bandwidth on its mobile SoCs for the past few generations, but it will need to do more. I suspect the mobile SoC vendors will take a page from the console folks and/or Intel and begin looking at embedded/stacked DRAM options over the coming years to address this problem.
Hisilicon K3V3 to use Mali-T658 GPU, ten times the performance of Mali-400 MP [GSM Insider, March 27, 2013]
At the Mobile World Congress 2013, many people expected Huawei to unveil the Hisilicon K3V3 processor. But the upcoming processor from the Chinese company is yet to unveil to date.
According to sources from China [obviously from this SHUMABAOBEI.NET article of March 26], the Hisilicon K3V3 processor is based on the 28nm technology and it is a quad-core processor. The Hisilicon is able to clock up to 1.8GHz. It has two sets of dual-core processor. The first set is an A15 architecture dual-core and the second set is an A7 architecture dual-core processor.
The most important is the GPU inside the Hisilicon. Sources reported that the Hisilicon K3V3 comes with Mali-T658 GPU. ARM stated that the Mali-T658 has ten times better performance than the Mali-400 MP and four times better than the Mali-T604. The Exynos 4412 in Samsung Galaxy S3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is using the Mali-400 MP GPU.
Look like the Hisilicon K3V3 is focusing on the graphics rather than on the numbers of core. The Hisilicon K3V3 could launch in second quarter of the year.
Related information:
–Mali-T658 GPU Extends Graphics And GPU Compute Leadership For High Performance Devices [press release, Nov 10, 2011] “To address high-end consumer requirements, the Mali-T658 GPU delivers up to ten times the graphics performance of the Mali-400 MP GPU, found in a wide range of today’s mainstream consumer products. It also features four times the GPU Compute performance of the Mali-T604 GPU, enabling a raft of new use-cases outside of traditional graphics processing, including computational photography, image-processing and augmented reality. … The ability of the Mali-T658 GPU to scale up to eight cores provides unprecedented energy-efficiency, flexibility and scalability to match the CPU and GPU performance points through one coherent interface.”
– ARM Mali-T658 GPU Arrives at the Japan Technical Symposium [ARM Multimedia blog, Nov 10, 2011] “It’s all about higher performance – twice as many shader cores and double the arithmetic pipelines per core [as the Mali-T604].”
– ARM’s Mali-T658 GPU in 2013, Up to 10x Faster than Mali-400 [AnandTech, Nov 9, 2011] which contains the following ARM roadmap clearly accelerated by a year or so, especially with the 2nd generation Mali T-600 Series 9 months later. Currently it is not clear why Mali-T658 is missing as a product on the ARM site. One reason might be that it was replaced by the more flexible 2nd generation Mal-T600 Series, especially since the PoP availability for that since January 2013 (see below).
– Hisilicon Licenses Range of ARM Mali Graphics Processors to Drive the Next-Generation of Smart Connected Devices [joint press release, May 21, 2012] “… including the market leading Mali-400 MP GPU and the latest high-performance Mali-T658 GPU.”
– Nufront and ARM Extend Partnership to Provide OEMs with Competitive Solutions for Next-Generation Smartphones, Tablets and Smart-TVs [joint press release, Sept 24, 2012] “Nufront has broadened its portfolio of ARM technology with licenses for the ARM® Cortex™-A15 MPCore™ Processor and ARM Mali™-T658 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).”
Mali-T600 Series Completing the ARM 64-bit System Story [ARM Multimedia blog, Oct 30, 2012]
Today ARM announced the ARM® Cortex™-A50 processor series, which include ARMs first low-power 64-bit implementations of the ARMv8 architecture. These highly anticipated products bring with them not only an enhanced 32-bit CPU architecture but also open up the wider range of opportunities that 64-bit architectures offer for high performance energy efficient devices.
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The second generation of the Cortex/Mali pairing – the Cortex-A15 and Mali-T604 is appearing now in consumer devices from Google (Samsung Chromebook and Nexus 10 Tablet) based on the Samsung Exynos 5250 which enables, like its predecessors, market leading devices in a wide range of markets
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The combination of the Cortex-A50 and the Mali-T600 series brings to market the highest performance CPU/GPU pairing targeting energy efficient devices. The Mali-T600 series is already able to support 64-bit addressing and offers IEEE 754 compliant 64-bit floating point arithmetic; so really is “64-bit system” ready. This opens up the potential for developers to get started earlier on the GPU elements with real silicon. The Mali-T600 series of products have all been designed with support for the latest ARMv8 architecture for both 32-bit (AArch32) and 64-bit mode(AArch64). This close functional matching will become even more important as GPU Computing opens up more exciting use cases over the coming years, and ARM will continue to focus on delivering leading processor and system IP that silicon vendors can rapidly deploy. Keep watching..
Mali-T604
[ARM microsite, Nov 8, 2012]
This fourth-generation of Mali embedded graphics IP, designed to meet the needs of General Purpose computing on GPU (GPGPU), extends API support to include full profile as well as embedded Khronos™ OpenCL™ and Microsoft® DirectX®.
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Performance
The Mali-T604 GPU delivers up to 5x performance improvement over previous Mali graphics processors and is scalable up to four cores
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Mali Graphics plus GPU Compute
[ARM microsite, Nov 7, 2012]
ARM Mali Graphics with GPU Compute provides premium graphics solutions to high end electronic devices. The graphics performance capability of these products is higher than Graphics only roadmap. ARM Mali Graphics with GPU Compute Midgard Tri-pipe architecture and includes the Mali-T678, Mali-T628 and the Mali-T624.
See also: “The GPU king is doing well, long live Mali-450 MP” [ARM Multimedia blog, June 18, 2012]
ARM Launches Second Generation of MALI-T600 Graphics Processors Driving Improved User Experience for Tablets, Smartphones and Smart-TVs [press release, Aug 6, 2012]
Each of the products features a 50% performance increase* and are the first to include Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC), a texture compression technique that originated from ARM. ASTC significantly optimizes GPU performance and increases battery life in devices, enabling an always-on, always-connected experience, and has now been adopted by the Khronos™ Group, an important industry consortium that focuses on open standards.
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ARM continues to invest in GPU compute capabilities by integrating the leadership that ARM has in the CPU space, with ARM Cortex™ processors, and applying it to the Mali GPU architecture. GPU compute enables greater control when balancing tasks between the CPU and GPU, allowing performance of the right task by the most efficient architecture. This enables improved energy-efficiency for current and new math intensive activities, such as:
Computational photography: computational methods of enhancing or extending digital photography
Multi perspective views: the ability to have multiple views from different positions
Real-time photo editing on mobile devices: photo editing at your fingertips on your smartphone, tablet, etc.
GPU compute also extends the range of use cases possible on mass-market mobile devices, allowing features like photo editing and video stabilization to be available in a wider range of consumer products.
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*Each of the second generation Mali-T600 Series GPUs features a 50% performance increase compared to first generation Mali-T600 products (based on industry standard benchmarks), on the same silicon process. This 50% increase has been facilitated by a combination of frequency improvements, such as optimizing the register transfer level (RTL) for increased performance, and micro-architectural improvements so that graphics are executed more efficiently.
The design of each new product addresses different performance points:
ARM Mali-T624/Mali-T628
The Mali-T624 GPU offers scalability from one to four cores, whilst the Mali-T628 from one to eight cores provides up to twice the graphics and GPU compute performance of the Mali-T624, extending the graphics potential for smartphones and smart-TVs. These products provide breathtaking graphical displays for advanced consumer applications, such as 3D graphics, visual computing and real time photo editing for smartphones and smart-TVs.
ARM Mali-T678
The ARM Mali-T678 GPU offers the highest GPU compute performance available in the Mali-T600 Series of products, delivering a four-fold increase when compared with the Mali-T624 GPU through features, such as increased ALU support. This brings a wide range of performance points to address the vibrant tablet market. The Mali-T678 offers energy-efficient high-end visual computing applications, such as computational photography, multi perspective views and augmented reality.
What is ASTC?
ASTC supports a very wide range of pixel formats and bit rates, and enables significantly higher quality than most other formats currently in use. This allows the designer to use texture compression throughout the application, and to choose the optimal format and bit rate for each use case. This highly efficient texture compression standard reduces the already market-leading Mali GPU memory bandwidth and memory footprint even further, while extending mobile battery life.
All products are designed to support the following APIs; OpenGL® ES 1.1, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 3.0, DirectX 11 FL 9_3, DirectX® 11, OpenCL™ 1.1 Full Profile and Google Renderscript compute.
ARM Announces 8-core 2nd Gen Mali-T600 GPUs [AnandTech, Aug 6, 2012]
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Both the T628 and T678 are eight-core parts, the primary difference between the two (and between graphics/GPU compute optimized ARM GPUs in general) is the composition of each shader core. The T628 features two ALUs, a LSU and texture unit per shader, while the T658 doubles up the ALUs per core.
Long term you can expect high end smartphones to integrate cores from the graphics & compute optimized roadmap, while the mainstream and lower end smartphones wll pick from the graphics-only roadmap. All of this sounds good on paper, however there’s still the fact that we’re talking about the second generation of Mali-T600 GPUs before the first generation has even shipped. We will see the first gen Mali-T600 parts before the end of the year, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement in the way mobile GPUs and SoCs are launched…
ARM Announces POP IP Technology for Mali-T600 Series GPUs [press release, Oct 11, 2012]
What: ARM® today introduced the first POP™ IP solution for ARM Mali™-T600 series graphics processor units (GPUs). This latest offering of POP IP — core-hardening acceleration technology that produces the best implementations of ARM processors in the fastest time-to-market — is optimized for the Mali-T628 and Mali-T678 on TSMC 28nm HPM process technology. Mali GPUs go into a variety of end devices, including a wide range of smartphones, from high performance to mass market, as well as tablets and smart TVs. It is critical that designers can optimize their Mali GPU for their selected end applications.
Developed in synergistic collaboration by ARM’s Media Processing and Physical IP divisions, the optimized POP IP technology has been created to produce the most efficient GPU implementations at 28nm. The POP IP enabled Mali-T600 series GPU implementation results in superior performance density/watt, and significant silicon savings. Benefits of this POP IP have been proven to deliver up to 27 percent higher frequency, 24 percent lower area, and 19 percent lower power than implementations which do not use POP IP.
POP IP technology is comprised of three critical elements necessary to achieve an optimized ARM processor or GPU implementation. First, it contains Artisan® physical IP standard cell logic and memory cache instances that are specifically tuned for a given ARM processor and foundry technology. Second, it includes a comprehensive benchmarking report to document the exact conditions and results ARM achieved for the processor implementation across an envelope of configuration and design targets. Finally, it includes the detailed implementation knowledge including floor plans, scripts, design utilities and a POP implementation guide, which enables the end customer to achieve similar results quickly and with lower risk.
Why: “As the industry moves toward 28nm, designers need options that can lower their risk and help them achieve the fastest time-to-market. ARM is pleased to bring the benefits that have been experienced with POP IP usage around Cortex process implementation to Mali GPUs,” said Pete Hutton, general manager, Media Processing Division at ARM. “POP IP for Mali GPUs is not about pre-determined benchmarks, it’s about giving our partners greater flexibility by leveraging ARM’s holistic approach to explore and find the right optimization customized to the specific end-application.”
When: The POP IP for Mali-T628 and T678 on TSMC 28HPM process is available for immediate license to both existing and new licensees. The IP will be available in January 2013.
How does Mali POP help …. from: Mali POP IP Efficient GPU implementations [Dec 5, 2012]
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ARM Mali-T628 & TSMC 28nm HPM can be used in multiple target applications.
– The sheer number of available options can make selection difficult. -
ARM has invested significant time & effort in investigating the ARM Mali-T62x PPA envelope
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ARM have performed all our analysis using real GPU work load which has led to improvements in implementation and analysis
ARM and Synopsys Collaborate to Optimize ARM Mali GPU 20nm Implementation [joint press release, Feb 25, 2013]
Highlights:
- Combination of ARM® Artisan® physical IP, Mali™ GPU IP and Synopsys Galaxy Implementation Platform proven ready for 20nm and smaller
- On-going collaboration aims to optimize and deliver double patterning technology (DPT)-ready methodology for Mali GPU implementation
- First implementation of the Mali-T600 series of products in 20nm technologies, with learning from this implementation accelerating the product family into sub-20nm technologies
ARM (LON: ARM; Nasdaq: ARMH) and Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) today announced a collaboration to optimize performance of ARM® Mali™ graphics processing units (GPUs) in 20-nanometer (nm) and smaller process geometries using the Synopsys Galaxy™ Implementation Platform. The companies successfully taped out the first ARM Mali-T658 design using a 20nm process technology, ARM Artisan® physical IP and shader functionality. The resulting RTL-through-sign-off design flow includes double-patterning support throughout. The ongoing collaboration will help designers optimize the implementation of Mali GPUs for their target applications.
“Mali GPUs are found in most Android™ tablets and smart digital TVs currently shipping, and are one of the most popular graphics solutions for smartphones. Users’ demand for advanced graphics continues to increase, which means that optimizing GPUs for selected end devices is essential,” said Pete Hutton, general manager, Media Processing Division, ARM. “Building on a long history of successful collaborations with Synopsys, this implementation will enable designers to optimally implement ARM Mali-T600 family GPUs using Synopsys tools in sub 20nm leading-edge process technologies.”
The Mali-T600 series includes five members (Mali-T604, Mali-T624, Mali-T628, Mali-T658 and Mali-T678), which have all been designed to provide exceptional graphics performance and they feature the first graphics technology to bring GPU compute functionality into mobile devices. This combined functionality brings additional hardware complexity which is further compounded by the new double-patterning requirements introduced by 20nm and below technologies.
Smaller process technologies, such as 20nm and below, require a highly integrated design flow for fast closure while delivering optimal results. The collaboration used the Galaxy Implementation Platform to produce a methodology tuned for the Mali GPU with ARM Artisan physical IP in 20nm. Primary tools used included Synopsys’ Design Compiler® synthesis, Formality® formal verification, DFTMAX™ and TetraMAX® test, IC Compiler™ layout, StarRC™ extraction and PrimeTime® timing analysis and signoff. In addition, IC Validator In-Design capabilities for physical verification were used during the implementation process to speed design closure. The methodology also benefitted from the use of DC Explorer & Dataflow Analyzer to perform early exploration, especially of floorplans and macro placement so critical to GPU performance.
“Twenty-nanometer and smaller process technologies introduce new complexity requiring early and deep technical collaboration among semiconductor ecosystem partners,” said Antun Domic, senior vice president and general manager, Implementation Group, Synopsys. “Through this collaboration with ARM, the Synopsys Galaxy Implementation Platform with In-Design physical verification combines with the ARM Mali IP and Artisan physical IP to provide a proven, DPT-compliant solution that will help accelerate the time to design closure on complex SoCs at 20 nanometers and below.”
ARM Mali SeeMore Demo: Lighting Effects, OpenGL ES 3 & Enlighten Engine – GDC 2013 [ARMflix YouTube channel, March 28, 2013]
More information:
– Mali Developer Tools, Augmented Reality, Lighting, SDKs & More at GDC [ARM Multimedia blog, April 2, 2013]
– Meet the experts in mobile graphics at GDC 2013 [With Imagination Blog, March 20, 2013]
– Imagination delivers latest version of leading tools for game development at GDC 2013 [press release, March 25, 2013]
Kishonti CLBenchmark Mali-T600 GPU Compute (MWC 2013) [ARMflix YouTube channel, March 5, 2013]
Source: CLBenchmark Results Database as of April 6, 2013.
– Intel® Core™ i3-3240 Processor (2 cores, 4 threads, 3M Cache, 3.40 GHz)
– Intel® Celeron® Processor B820 (2 cores, 2 threads, 2M Cache, 1.70 GHz)
– AMD A4-5300 (2 cores, 1M Cache, 3.40 GHz)
– AMD A6-4400M (2 cores, 1M cache, 2.7 GHz)
The interpretation of the above benchmark apps see at the very end of this post
Note that in pure GLbenchmark performances against the latest Apple tablet the T604 is underperforming and even not significantly higher against some other tablets:
- Nexus 10 GPU: Mali T604 (four cores) @500MHz
- iPad Mini GPU: SGX543MP2 (two cores) @250MHz
- iPad (4th generation) GPU: SGX554MP4 (four cores) @300MHz
- iPad (iPad 3) GPU: SGX543MP4 (four cores) @250MHz
- Onda V812 and Onda V972 have an SGX544MP2 (two cores) GPU
This might explain quite well why ARM was heavily pushing ahead with its 2nd generation T600 Series. (See also AllWinner A31 and A31s with PowerVR graphics [my other ‘USD 99 Allwinner’ blog, Jan 3 – March 29, 2013] for complete understanding of Imaginations’s PowerVR competition).
OpenCL benchmark CLBenchmark running on Google Nexus 10 (Android 4.2.1)! [KishontiLtd YouTube channel, Feb 12, 2013]
ARM Mali-T604 GPU running OpenCL at MWC13 [LEAPconf YouTube channel, Feb 27, 2013]
The Future of Mobile Gaming Panel Interview at GDC 2013 [ARMflix YouTube channel, April 3, 2013]
More information: What is the Future of Mobile Gaming? GDC Panel Summary [ARM Multimedia blog, April 3, 2013]
… The panel got off to a fine start with a debate on the importance of AAA gaming in the mobile space. This brought out a range of opinions from AAA being the main path for mobile and the mobile experience, with many believing that consumers are looking for bigger and better experiences from gaming on their mobile devices, and that AAA is key in creating the ‘wow’ factor for the next generation mobile devices.
Consumers will need high-end content like AAA quality games to drive the use of higher performance mobile devices. The alternative opinion was that with innovation being applied to casual gaming, the expectation is that we will move away from the current categories of games with an even larger number of gaming categories – with elements of regional aspects being built into the gaming experience. David from Unity talked about how short the half-life of games were at only 2 years compared to films which are 5-10 years. …
Remark: AAA Game [By Warren Schultz, About.com Guide, May 23, 2012]
A AAA game, or pronounced “triple-A game”, is generally a title developed by a large studio, funded by a massive budget.
These games will have a marketing budget in the multiple-millions of dollars, and are planned to earn out in excess of one million titles sold. Investors/publishers expect a multiple-of-cost return on their investment. In order to recoup general development costs, publishers will generally produce the title for the major platforms (currently Xbox 360, PS3, and PC) to maximize profits, unless it is a console exclusive, in which case the console maker will pay for exclusivity to offset the loss of potential profit to the developer.
Pronunciation: triple-A game
Glue Mobile representative in the beginning of the above video is essentially stating that mobile only gaming sooner or later would disrupt the console industry. So it is worth to take a look at the relevant excerpts from Glu Mobile Corporate Overview, Presentation at Roth Capital Investor Conference [March 18, 2013]:
Interpret’s New GameByte™ Data Shows Only Half of All Gamers Play Retail Console Games [Interpret LLC press release via BusinessWire, April 4, 2013]
Interpret, a leading entertainment, media and technology market research firm, today announced top-level findings from GameByte™, a syndicated study designed to understand cross-platform digital gaming adoption and behavior in ten global markets.
The service, now in its second year, studies consumers (age 6-64) of every form of video gaming, including both traditional retail business models and digital business models. The latest data reveals that 96% of all US gamers have played some form of digital game in the past six months. By contrast, only 53% of US gamers have played a traditional retail console game in the same period.
“The trend carries across all ten countries covered by GameByte,” said Jason Coston, senior analyst at Interpret. “If you’re a gamer, you’re a digital gamer. Retail console games still capture a significant portion of gamers, but several digital business models now command just as much market share: mobile game apps, social network games on PC, and casual games on PC.”
GameByte data also confirms the ubiquity of digital gaming in other countries traditionally focused on consoles, such as the UK and Japan. Ninety-four percent of UK gamers now play digital games, as well as 87% of Japanese gamers.
Interpret will soon roll out in-depth reports covering revenue sizes and gaming attitude and behavior in each territory over the coming months.
What Forced Riccitiello Out at Electronic Arts? [Bloomberg YouTube channel, March 18, 2013]
EA: Demise of console gaming ‘very premature’ [GameSpot, April 1, 2013]
COO Peter Moore says even though mobile is growing, gamers continue to show enthusiasm for core titles.
The demise of traditional console gaming is not a reality the industry faces, according to Electronic Arts chief operating officer Peter Moore. Speaking with Bloomberg TV, Moore said even though the mobile space has grown, gamers still want core titles they can play on a big screen.
“The console business is still a core part of our business; it’s the majority of our business. The demise of console gaming is very premature as far as we’re concerned,” Moore said.
“We still have thousands of people focused on developing current-generation Xbox 360 and PS3 games, as well as people focused now on the next generation when that finally arrives,” he added. “And so, people still want core games. People want to sit back in their living rooms, take advantage of their HD TVs, and and play fully immersive games like [Battlefield 4].“
Also during the interview, Moore said he expects EA’s digital sales–which includes mobile, downloadable content, and subscriptions–to possibly overtake its traditional packaged goods business by 2015.
“In two years we could be looking at the tipping point where digital becomes bigger than the traditional core,” Moore said.
Moore is believed to be a leading candidate to take over as the next EA CEO. He would not comment on this conjecture, but praised John Riccitiello for leaving the company in “tremendous shape.” Moore said one thing the new EA CEO needs to do is execute.
“We did not executive to the level that we needed to in [fiscal year 2013] and [John Riccitiello] took accountability for that. And I think the future CEO will focus on pure execution because all the ingredients are there; we have the world’s best developers, we have a tremendous publishing pipeline, and we’ve made the hard decisions about our platform.
Meet the ARM Mali-T604 [ARMflix YouTube channel, Nov 10, 2010]
ARM TechCon 2012 – Consumer Products Announced based on ARM Mali-T604 [ARMflix YouTube channel, Nov 5, 2012]
The Mali-T604 is available only with Samsung Electronics as per Global Businesses Select ARM Mali GPU Technology [News on the Mali Developer Center of ARM, Feb 25, 2013]
Samsung Electronics
“Samsung Smart TV has been leading market in transforming the viewing experiences of consumers in the living room. Through the adoption of the quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor and Mali-T604 GPUs, Samsung Smart TV, including the world’s first quad-core built-in F8000, will enable a new way of enjoying content on TV with innovative user interfaces and faster performance,” said Cheul-Hee Hahm, Master of R&D Team, Visual Display Business, Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd.
In 2013 there will be a significant increase in the number of mass market smartphones based on Mali-400 and Mali-450 GPUs, and of high-end phones taking advantage of the high performance of the Mali-T600 family.
ARM® Mali™ Timbuktu2 based on Samsung® Exynos™ 5 Dual [ARMflix YouTube channel, Sept 10, 2012]
Note that mobile gaming as one should talk about the new Mali products in a more general context, such as: ARM Mali GPUs turn GPU Compute into reality at MWC [News at Mali Developer Center, Feb 22, 2013]
When:
25th – 28th February 2013, MWC, Barcelona, Spain.
Where:
ARM stand at Mobile World Congress, Hall 6 Stand 6A31.
What:
ARM will showcase a range of Mali™ GPU Compute use cases running on devices, demonstrating the benefits of Renderscript and OpenCL.
ARM Mali GPUs are the first to bring the benefits of GPU Compute to mobile devices. ARM is also the first IP vendor to pass OpenCL 1.1 Full Profile Khronos conformance test. GPU Compute ensures that the right task is placed in the right place at the right time, enabling greater performance efficiencies.
In a world where smartphones and tablets act as our primary compute platform for more than accessing the internet and social media, but also used to create and view videos and experience on-the-go gaming, leading companies are discovering new ways to ensure technology is making the phone last longer and do far more than ever before
You’ll discover how running a task on a GPU is faster, while enabling other tasks to be run at the same time. See firsthand how smart allocation of the tasks is far more efficient and is seamless to the user. GPU compute opens up new use cases whilst existing tasks are done more efficiently.
Mali GPUs are the first graphics technology to support Google Renderscript Compute, enabling real devices to bring new exciting features to consumers.
ARM is the first to offer Full Profile OpenCL™ support for mobile devices. ARM will show how OpenCL can be used in applications including high accuracy facial detection and multi-face detection – improving photography on mobile devices as well as creating significant performance improvements.
ARM continues to build a thriving and strong ecosystem around Mali GPU Compute, with strategic collaborations from leaders and experts across the whole industry. This is opening new markets for ARM partners and adding value to Mali GPU Compute users.
Computational Photography
A key initial area to benefit from GPU compute – you will also be able to see the performance improvement possible when real-time image filters are applied to a camera feed and the performance improvements possible by moving the task from the CPU to the GPU. This demonstration shows the accelerations in image processing content made possible by Renderscript. ARM is committed to delivering more performance within a mobile power budget through innovative technologies which ensure a compute task is completed on the most energy efficient processing element. GPU Compute and big.LITTLE™ processing are the most recent examples of new technologies ensuring the right task can be run in the right place in the system.
By supporting GPU Compute ARM Mali GPUs are expanding the potential use cases for tablets and smartphones:
RS Benchmark from Kishonti will run for the first time on a mobile based GPU showing the key features that GPU enables – only possible with Mali-T604
Gaming
GPU Compute is also improving the gaming experience. You will see how a combination of OpenGL® ES 3.0 and OpenCL APIs offer a wider range of effects not seen before on mobile devices. OpenCL opens new levels of physics simulations and OpenGL ES 3.0 showcases effects such as showing the application of high dynamic range, adaptive luminance tone mapping and atmospheric scattering – features only normally seen in PC or console level gaming experiences.
Why:
ARM Mali GPUs are the first GPUs focused on the mobile space showing GPU Compute is a reality. GPU compute will enable:
New use cases previously not possible to perform on a mobile device enhancing the user experience
Make previous tasks more efficient – in conjunction with ARM big.LITTLE technology, GPU Compute is critical to running tasks using the most efficient part of the SoC
Synthesis Super-Resolution Scaler Demo on Exynos 5 Dual Powered Tablet at MWC 2013 [SamsungExynos YouTube channel, March 19, 2013]
Note that Samsung selected a PowerVR SGX544MP GPU core from for its Samsung Exynos 5410 Octa processor (or simply Exynos 5 Octa) as indicated by The PowerVR SGX544, a modern GPU for today’s leading platforms [With Imagination blog, March 13, 2013]. For other information see Samsung Announces the Availability of Exynos 5 Octa for New Generation of Mobile Devices [Samsung Semiconductor press release, March 15, 2013]. This first big.LITTLE processor, also first by being manufactured using Samsung’s latest 28-nanometer (nm) HKMG (High-k Metal Gate) low power process and power-saving design, was released with the latest high-end and high-volume smartphones from Samsung, the Galaxy S 4 (“Samsung Altius” which also used in other half of the models a quadcore Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T SoC, manufactured by TSMC). See also: Samsung Introduces the GALAXY S 4 – A Life Companion for a richer, simpler and fuller life [March 14, 2013].
Samsung Exynos 5 Dual [Samsung microsite, Feb 28, 2012]
World First ARM Cortex A-15 based 1.7 GHz Dual-Core Mobile Application Processor
Exynos 5 Dual is the world’s first A-15 Dual Core mobile CPU, presented by Samsung Semiconductor. Using 32nm HKMG (High-K Metal Gate) process technology, the 1.7GHz dual core Exynos 5 Dual brings unmatched performance to your leading-edge mobile devices while maintaining low power consumption
Multitask with a Power, Energy Efficient SoC
Exynos 5 Dual, using 32nm HKMG*, is designed to meet your graphic-intensive, multi-task and power efficient requirements. It performs nearly two times faster than the existing Cortex A9-based dual core processor, with an amazing 30% lower power consumption than our previous Exynos process developed on a 45nm process. Exynos 5 Dual is well qualified to lead the high-end mobile application processor market.
*HKMG process – : High K Metal Gate Process
See more: Process Technology – 32/28nm | Samsung Semiconductor [Feb 16, 2012]
Enjoy New level of 3D gaming and reading experience
World`s highest class mobile 3D graphic processor makes games and images come alive! You will feel like you’re actually part of the game. Featuring stereoscopic 3D, Exynos 5 Dual could take you right to the middle of the cheering audience of your favorite football game. Enjoy reading? The Exynos 5 Dual supports WQXGA provides high resolution for clear readability. It’s nearly like reading an actual newspaper.
Get your Mobile devices well connected to WQXGA display!
With Exynos 5 Dual, enjoy web-surfing, e-mailing, photos and videos at the best possible resolution, WQXGA, currently available for mobile devices. Exynos 5 Dual is equipped with embedded Display Port (eDP) interface, compliant with panel self refresh (PSR) technology. The PSR function instructs the application processor not to send image data to the LCD panel when the set is displaying still image, reducing power consumption. Exynos 5 Dual provides 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth with 2-port 800MHz LPDDR3 for heavy traffic operations. Plus, various scopes of booting interfaces, (SATA, UART, USB3.0, eMMC4.5) guarantees our end users crisp and sharp multimedia transmission.
Play 3D Stereoscopic video smoothly on your Full HD siplay without ever Encoding
Exynos 5 Dual`s powerful 8 megapixel resolution image signal processor fully supports best-in-class cameras with high resolution video recording and playback. The 1080p 60 fps multi format codec enables the highest quality FHD videos. Additionally, your device will be able to play almost any type of video format with integrated MFC (Multi Format Codec)
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Samsung Announces Industry First ARM Cortex-A15 Processor Samples for Tablet Computers [Samsung Semiconductor press release, Nov 30, 2011] “The Exynos 5250 [>>> Exynos 5 Dual] is currently sampling to customers and is scheduled for mass-production in the second quarter of 2012.”
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Samsung Opens New Opportunities for Mobile App Development with the Arndale Community Development Board [Samsung Semiconductor press release, Oct 26, 2012] “Arndale enables next generation of mobile applications development with the Exynos 5 Dual SoC, the world’s first production solution based on the ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processor”
[Exynos 5 Dual] Arndale Board Video is NOW available! [Samsungsemi1 YouTube, Feb 7, 2013]
Enjoy the Ultimate WQXGA [2560×1600] Solution with Exynos 5 Dual [Samsung whitepaper, July 9, 2012]
…
World’s Best 3D Performance
Currently, the 3D graphics engine in mobile operating systems is used for 3D rendering and for all basic graphic work on the screen. Because the 3D graphic engine operates UI overlay, homescreen, 3D games, and more, 3D performance has become a very important feature for measuring Mobile AP’s overall performance. The 3D performance in the Exynos series has always been beyond compare; however, Exynos 5 Dual will raise the bar for mobile AP’s 3D performance even higher.
Screen resolution is directly related to 3D performance. WQXGA resolution is four times better than WXGA, meaning that mobile APs must deliver 3D performance at least two times better than the previous generation. To meet the standard of WQXGA resolution, mobile AP requires a new 3D engine and architecture.
Samsung System LSI worked closely with ARM to achieve the quad core Mali-T604, the most advanced mobile 3D engine to date. With Mali-T604, Exynos 5 Dual delivers two times better GPU performance than Exynos 4. Since Exynos 4 has more than enough 3D performance to satisfy WXGA [1280×800] resolution, Exynos 5 Dual is the only mobile AP that can handle WQXGA content with 60fps updates.
In addition, the 3D feature of Exynos 5 Dual fully supports GPGPU, including openCL v1.1 full profile.
GPGPU is a solution that distributes the CPU’s computation workload to the GPU. In GPGPU support, the floating point performance and precision of GPUs are the key factors. While CPUs can handle 64-bit floating point (double-precision), most mobile GPUs can only handle 32-bit floating point (singleprecision). Exynos 5 Dual is the first mobile AP that can run double precision floating point and full precision with outstanding 72GFlops floating point performance. With this functionality, a developer can handle more precise and heavy computation works by simultaneously using Exynos 5 Dual’s cortex-A15 dual cores and quad Mali-T604 cores performance.
…
Arndale Board Exynos 5250 ARM Cortex-A15 Mali-T604 Development Board [Charbax YouTube channel, Nov 1, 2012]
-
Samsung’s Exynos 5 Dual Application Processor Drives Industry’s Highest Resolution on Google’s Nexus 10 Tablet [Samsung Semiconductor press release, Nov 13, 2012]
-
Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Powers the New Google Chromebook [Samsung Semiconductor press release, Nov 21, 2012]
Samsung Exynos 5 Dual processor [Samsungsemi1 YouTube, Nov 2, 2012]
Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Processor (ARM® Cortex™-A15 based Dual core processor) at ARM techcon [Samsungsemi1 YouTube, Nov 1, 2012]
Exynos 5 Dual [Application Processor Product Catalogue | Samsung Semiconductor, April 26, 2012]
Features
Dualcore/LPDDR2/LPDDR3/DDR3Dualchannelmemory/
WQXGA60fps3Dgraphicsupport/32nmHKMGprocess/
1080p60fpsmultiformatcodec/8Mpix30fpsEmbeddedISPPackage
SCP:1088FCFBGA/POP:1036FCFBGA
General Description
An application processor, or SoC (System on a Chip), is a microprocessor with a specialized architecture for deployment in embedded systems, such as digital still/video cameras, digital/smart TVs and set-top boxes, and automotive systems, among others. An SoC operates at frequencies from several hundred MHz to a few GHz, and is architected to deliver significant computing performances at low power consumption levels in limited board spaces. High-end SoCs often contain multiple cores, enabling them to deliver exceptional performances in applications such as digital imaging and multimedia devices.
Current-generation SoCs are capable of running full-fledged versions of modern operating systems, providing the user a rich, interactive interface on devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Almost all the latest SoCs have the ability to decode a majority of multimedia codecs, and contain hardware engines to deliver enhanced multimedia experiences to the user. They also contain dedicated MMUs (memory management units) to manage the memory for applications being run on the device. Recent SoCs also have a multitude of peripheral connectivity solutions on the chip, offering the designer extensive control in providing connectivity options on the device. SoCs are application specific, and contain features targeted towards the intended deployment segment. Thus, an SoC designed for a mobile handset would include front-end GSM RF functionalities on-chip, which would be absent in an SoC designed for deployment in a digital still camera. An increasing number of SoCs, however, are now offering a wide range of features, making the processor suitable for deployment on any application. Samsung is a worldwide leader in providing the most advanced, efficient, and customizable SoC solutions for deployment on a wide range of platforms, such as digital imaging, multimedia, and mobile communication and computing. Samsung’s line of SoCs offers the highest performance, thermal stability, reliability, and I/O density in the smallest form factors at the lowest power consumption levels. Worldwide, Samsung is the preferred provider for SoC solutions for a majority of developers and OEMs for deployment on the broadest computing and communication devices and platforms.
Detail Features
- CortexA15 dual core subsystem with 64-/128-bit SIMD NEON
- 32KB (Instruction)/32KB (Data) L1 Cache and 1MB L2 Cache
- 128-bit Multi-layered bus architecture
- Internal ROM and RAM for secure booting, security, and general purposes
- Memory Subsystem
– 2-ports 32-bit 800MHz LPDDR3/DDR3 Interfaces
– 2-ports 32-bit 533MHz LPDDR2 Interfaces- 8-bit ITU 601 Camera Interface
- Multi-format Video Hardware Codec: 1080p 60fps (capable of decoding and encoding MPEG-4/H.263/H.264 and decoding only MPEG-2/VC1/VP8)
- 3D and 2D graphics hardware, supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/Halti, OpenVG 1.1 and OpenCL 1.1 full profile
- Image Signal Processor : supporting BayerRGB up to 14bit input with 14.6MP 15fps, 8MP 30fps through MIPI CSI2 & YUV 8bit interfaces and special functionalities such as 3-dimensional noise reduction (3DNR), video digital image stabilization (VDIS) and optical distortion compensation (ODC)
- JPEG Hardware Codec
- LCD single display, supporting max WQXGA, 24bpp RGB, YUV formats through MIPI DSI or eDP
- Simultaneously display of WQXGA single LCD display and 1080p HDMI
- HDMI 1.4 interfaces with on-chip PHY
- 2-ports (4-lanes) MIPI CSI2 interfaces
- 1-port (4-lanes) eDisplayPort (eDP)
- 1-channel USB 3.0 Device or Host, supporting SS (5Gbps) with on-chip PHY
- 1-channel USB 2.0 Host or Device, supporting LS/FS/HS (1.5Mbps/12Mbps/480Mbps) with on-chip PHY
- 2-channel USB HSIC, supporting 480Mbps with on-chip PHY
- 1-channel HS-MMC 4.5
- 1-channel SDIO 3.0
- 2-channel SD 2.0 or HS-MMC4.41
- 4-channel high-speed UART (up to 3Mbps data rate for Bluetooth 2.1 EDR and IrDA 1.0 SIR)
- 3-channel SPI
- 1-channel AC-97, 2-channel PCM, and 3-channel 24-bit I2S audio interface, supporting 5.1 channel audio
- 1-channel S/PDIF interface support for digital audio
- 4-channel I2C interface support (up to 400kbps) for PMIC, HDMI, and general-purpose multi-master
- 4-channel HS-I2C (up to 3.1 Mbps)
- Samsung Reconfiguration Processor supports low power audio play
- MIPI-HSI v1.1, supporting 200Mbps full-duplex
- C2C, supporting through path between DRAM and MODEM
- Security subsystem supporting hardware crypto accelerators, ARM TrustZone and TZASC
- 32-channel DMA Controller
- Configurable GPIOs
- Real time clock, PLLs, timer with PWM, multi-core timer, and watchdog timer
CLBenchmark – High-performance compute benchmark for OpenCL 1.1 environment [CLBenchmark.com, Oct 16, 2012]
Desktop 1.1
The first professional OpenCL benchmark for desktop OSes
CLBenchmark 1.1 Desktop Edition is an easy-to-use tool for comparing the computational performance of different platforms. It offers an unbiased way of testing and comparing the performance of implementations of OpenCL 1.1, a royalty-free standard for heterogeneous parallel programming maintained by Khronos Group. CLBenchmark compares the strengths and weaknesses of different hardware architectures such as CPUs, GPUs and APUs. The test results are listed in a transparent and public OpenCL performance database.
Features:
Physics: SPH Fluid Simulation
Physics simulation has a great history in computer science, as it’s original goal was to help scientists and engineers in their design efforts. With increased computing capacity, physics got into reach of virtual world simulations, for example games. Enabling physics simulation can uplift in-game interactions into a new dimension.
In our SPH Fluid simulation, we’ve created a particle based simulation consisting of 32k particles. The results of the simulation is displayed on a surface calculated by a Marching Cubes implementation. This technique is widely adopted among games, for simulating the movement of fluids, and even smoke, or other gases.
Graphics: Raytrace
Raytracing is an image synthesis technique used in wide variety of applications such as simulation-visualization, design, and special effects in movie making. This technique is also getting more attention as it is going to be available in real-time rendering, especially for games, which will enable developers to implement life-like lighting and shading models in their titles.
Our ray trace test implements the traditional recursive ray trace algorithm and supports reflections and soft shadows and also uses global illumination rays to replace the ambient term. The renderer uses kd-tree acceleration structure with the kd-restart traversal technique. The scene consists of 600k triangles and is rendered at 2048×1024 resolution.
The problem domain is divided into a grid of tiles (or frustums) that are processed separately – this saves memory. In addition, multiple devices can process different tiles at the same time, so this test can stress even multi-GPU systems. Most of the calculations are happening in the ray traversal kernel, which tries to find the nearest triangle that intersects the ray.
Optical flow: Feature Matching
With this application we calculate the motion of the depicted object on a series of input images. For each image we calculate a vectorfield, which associates a motion vector to every pixel. These motion vectors are represented in colorspace. The color map used for this can be seen in the bottom left corner of the calculated vector field image.
In computer vision, we can consider anything as a feature which has a high vertical and horizontal gradient and thus easily recognizable. A good feature can be robustly detected over a sequence of images. By matching these features over these image sequences, we can track the movement of objects.
We implemented the Moravec interest operator for our application, because it is easily parallelizable and can be easily and effectively implemented for the OpenCL platform. We developed a block-based matching strategy for tracking features. We applied the results of feature matching in a sample application in which we aim to calculate the velocity for each pixel. For this, we use a patch-based approach, calculating the sum of square differences for the neighborhood of the features.
The algorithm works on pairs of images. The first step is feature detection and matching. Each pair of features defines a motion vector. This rare field of motion vector are then revised heuristically, to remove false matchings. The dense vector field is constructed from this revised field.
Feature detection and the dense vector field calculation heavily utilize the image IO of the device. The device should also handle an increased number of kernel launches during this application.
Image Filter
From UI visualizations to graphics content creation and photography, image filters are extensively applied. As the most frequently used image filters are suites of convolution filters, we have included the most important types in CLBenchmark. In order to thoroughly examine the capabilities of the underlying hardware architectures, we have developed multiple implementations for a single filter.
Gauss Filter A Gauss filter is widely used for “smoothing” effects and, as it is a low-pass filter in frequency domain, it is also useful as a pre-pass of image resizing (down-sampling).
Sobel Filter A Sobel filter has edge detecting property so it takes part in anti-aliasing filters and a variety of object recognition algorithms.
Median Filter Despite the Median filter is not a convolution filter, it is widely accepted in the area of noise reduction, particularly applicable against salt and pepper noise.
Programming Principles
As a priority, we are trying to provide relevant real-world applications for benchmarking purposes. However, even a well selected set of use cases cannot match every possible workload, so we have added synthetic tests also. These are included in the Programming Principles group, containing multiple implementations of general problems which real-world parallel problems could be composited into.
Scanning Inclusive prefix sum calculation. It’s the base operation of dynamic data generation and various sorting algorithms like radix sort. Multiple implementations included, such as Parallel (logarithmic) Scan on Local memory chunks and a mostly sequential case.
Bucketing Making 5 homogeneous, compacted streams of a single heterogeneous array. Only Parallel Scan based version made.
Reduction Many-to-one kind of operators like “sum of an array” are used in reductions. We’ve found addition ideal, as the operator’s computation cost is the lowest possible, and we can focus on the algorithm itself. A more specific sum also included, implemented to measure atomic addition on both global and local memory addresses.
Bitonic Merge Sort Sorting algorithms are used in a wide variety of applications for example data structures, databases, computer graphics. Bitonic merge sort is parallel sorting algorithm, first ordering sub sequences in local memory, then merging the result in global memory.
Tree-search Parallel search for multiple elements on an unbalanced tree using depth first strategy. It’s ideal to stress the device’s resistance to branch-divergency.
Availability
Community Edition:
CLBenchmark 1.1 Desktop Edition is available for community use and can be downloaded free of charge. This edition requires network connection and collects information about your OpenCL devices. This method let us supply you with proper, device specific OpenCL binaries and enables CLBenchmark to fully utilize your device and helps to achieve its peak performance.
For more information about downloading CLBenchmark 1.1. Desktop Communitiy Edition, please click here.
Corporate Edition:
CLBenchmark 1.1 Desktop Edition is also accessible for licensing, which is aimed at industry-leading technology companies for testing and optimizing their OpenCL implementations and thus bringing stable and efficient solutions to the market. Click here for more details or send us a message at sales@clbenchmark.com! Windows, OS X and generic Linux.
Media Edition:
For journalists, CLBenchmark 1.1 Desktop Edition is available in a special Media Edition. For more information, email us at pr@kishontiinformatics.com!
With 28nm non-exclusive in 2013 TSMC tested first tape-out of an ARM Cortex™-A57 processor on 16nm FinFET process technology
Cortex-A57?
– 3x performance of 2012 superphones
– 64-bit support for future consumer apps + current and future enterprise apps
– Scalable beyond 16 cores…
First Cortex-A50 series chips available from 2014
Update: TSMC 16nm FinFET to enter mass production within one year after 20nm ramp-up, says Chang [DIGITIMES, April 18, 2013]
TSMC’s 16nm FinFET process will enter mass production in less than one year after ramping up production of 20nm chips, company chairman and CEO Morris Chang said at an investors meeting today (April 18).
Chang indicated that TSMC already moved its 20nm process to risk production in the first quarter of 2013. As for 16nm FinFET, the node will be ready for risk production by the year-end, Chang said.
While stepping up efforts to bring newer nodes online, TSMC has revised upward its 2013 capex to US$9.5-10 billion. The foundry previously set capex for the year at US$9 billion.
In addition, Chang reiterated his previous remark that production of TSMC’s 28nm wafers and revenues generated from the process in 2013 will triple those of 2012. The node technology will continue to play the major driver of TSMC’s revenue growth in 2013, said Chang, adding that the foundry’s share of the 28nm foundry market will remain high this year.
Nandan Nayampally highlights the ARM® Cortex™-A57 processor [ARMflix YouTube channel, Oct 30, 2012]
Introductory information: ARM information page [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Feb 5, 2013]
TSMC?
TSMC reports big Q4 net profit jump [Formosa EnglishNews YouTube channel, Jan 18, 2013]
Morris Chang with Jen-Hsun Huang [ComputerHistory YouTube channel, Nov 15, 2007]
Important note: The video was recorded in 2007, so an important addition has to be given in a preceding note from Morris Chang Wikipedia article:
… In 2005, he handed TSMC’s CEO position to Rick Tsai.
As of June 2009, Chang has returned to the position of TSMC‘s CEO once again [because things were not going well]. …
The essence of TSMC’s contract chip manufacturing operation, as it stands now, can be summarized by this diagram (more information around that is in the excepts included towards the end of this post from TSMC’s Annual Report released on April 2, 2013):
And here is another essential introductory information about TSMC:
TSMC OIP [Open Innovation Platform] 2012 – Sit down with Suk Lee, TSMC [chipestimate YouTube channel, Oct 26, 2012]
Investing in FinFET Technology Leadership Presented by ARM [ARMflix YouTube channel, Nov 12, 2012]
Background information:
– The future of the semiconductor IP ecosystem [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 13, 2012]
– ARM information page [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Feb 5, 2013]
Next-generation Solutions: One Size does not Fit All by Nandan Nayampally, Director of Apps Processor Products, Processor Division, ARM [ARMflix YouTube channel, Jan 3, 2013]
ARM TechCon 2012 – Simon Segars Keynote launching the Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 processors [ARMflix YouTube channel, Oct 30, 2012]
Background information:
– ARM information page [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Feb 5, 2013]
– Cortex-A57 Processor [ARM microsite, Oct 30, 2012]
– ARM Cortex-A57 – So Big is Relative but How Relative is Your Big? [SoC Design blog of ARM, Oct 30, 2012]
– ARM TechCon 2012 Day 1 – Cortex-A50 Launch, Panel Discussion and Busy Sessions [ARM Events blog, Oct 31, 2012]
– big.LITTLE in 64-bit [SoC Design blog of ARM, Nov 1, 2012]
– Cortex-A57 – Connected Community – ARM [ARM community page, Nov 12, 2012]
Finally here is the press release describing the news summarized by me in the headline of this post as “With 28nm non-exclusive in 2013 TSMC tested first tape-out of an ARM Cortex™-A57 processor on 16nm FinFET process technology”:
ARM and TSMC Tape Out First ARM Cortex-A57 Processor [joint press release, April 2, 2013]
Hsinchu, Taiwan and Cambridge, UK – April 2, 2013 – ARM and TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today announced the first tape-out of an ARM® Cortex™-A57 processor on FinFET process technology. The Cortex-A57 processor is ARM’s highest performing processor, designed to further extend the capabilities of future mobile and enterprise computing, including compute intensive applications such as high-end computer, tablet and server products. This is the first milestone in the collaboration between ARM and TSMC to jointly optimize the 64-bit ARMv8 processor series on TSMC FinFET process technologies. The two companies cooperated in the implementation from RTL to tape-out in six months using ARM Artisan® physical IP, TSMC memory macros, and EDA technologies enabled by TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform® (OIP) design ecosystem.
ARM and TSMC’s collaboration produces optimized, power-efficient Cortex-A57 processors and libraries to support early customer implementations on 16nm FinFET for high-performance, ARM technology-based SoCs.
“This first ARM Cortex-A57 processor implementation paves the way for our mutual customers to leverage the performance and power efficiency of 16nm FinFET technology,” said Tom Cronk, executive vice president and general manager, Processor Division, ARM. “The joint effort of ARM, TSMC, and TSMC’s OIP design ecosystem partners demonstrates the strong commitment to provide industry-leading technology for customer designs to benefit from our latest 64-bit ARMv8 architecture, big.LITTLE™ processing and ARM POP™ IP across a wide variety of market segments.”
“Our multi-year, multi-node collaboration with ARM continues to deliver advanced technologies to enable market-leading SoCs across mobile, server, and enterprise infrastructure applications,” said Dr. Cliff Hou, TSMC Vice President of R&D. “This achievement demonstrates that the next-generation ARMv8 processor is FinFET-ready for TSMC’s advanced technology.”
This announcement highlights the enhanced and intensified collaboration between ARM and TSMC. The test chip was implemented using a commercially available 16nm FinFET tool chain and design services provided by the OIP ecosystem and ARM Connected Community partners. This successful collaborative milestone is confirmation of the roles that TSMC’s OIP and ARM’s Connected Community play in promoting innovation for the semiconductor design industry.
About ARM
ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices. ARM’s comprehensive product offering includes RISC microprocessors, graphics processors, video engines, enabling software, cell libraries, embedded memories, high-speed connectivity products, peripherals and development tools. Combined with comprehensive design services, training, support and maintenance, and the company’s broad Partner community, they provide a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies. Find out more about ARM by following these links:
• ARM website: http://www.arm.com/
• ARM Connected Community: http://www.arm.com/community/
• ARM Blogs: http://blogs.arm.com/
• ARMFlix on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ARMflix
ARM on Twitter:
• http://twitter.com/ARMMobile
• http://twitter.com/ARMCommunity
• http://twitter.com/ARMEmbedded
• http://twitter.com/ARMLowPwr
• http://twitter.com/KeilTools
• http://twitter.com/ARMMultimedia
About TSMC
TSMC is the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, providing the industry’s leading process technology and the foundry’s largest portfolio of process-proven libraries, IPs, design tools and reference flows. The Company’s managed capacity in 2012 totaled 15.1 million (8-inch equivalent) wafers, including capacity from three advanced 12-inch GIGAFAB™ facilities, four eight-inch fabs, one six-inch fab, as well as TSMC’s wholly owned subsidiaries, WaferTech and TSMC China, and its joint venture fab, SSMC. TSMC is the first foundry to provide 28nm production capabilities. TSMC’s corporate headquarters are in Hsinchu, Taiwan. For more information about TSMC please visit http://www.tsmc.com.
# # #
Form 20-F Filings with U.S. SEC (4/2/2013) for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC 台積公司) [TSMC, April 2, 2013]
ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2012
…
… Over the years, our customer profile and the nature of our customers’ business have changed dramatically. While we generate revenue from hundreds of customers worldwide, our ten largest customers accounted for approximately 54%, 56% and 59% of our net sales in 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively. Our largest customer accounted for 9%, 14% and 17% of our net sales in 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively. …
… We believe we are currently the world’s largest dedicated foundry in the semiconductor industry. We were founded in 1987 as a joint venture among the R.O.C. government and other private investors and were incorporated in the R.O.C. on February 21, 1987. …
…
As a foundry, we manufacture semiconductors using our manufacturing processes for our customers based on their own or third parties’ proprietary integrated circuit designs. We offer a comprehensive range of wafer fabrication processes, including processes to manufacture CMOS logic, mixed-signal, radio frequency, embedded memory, BiCMOS mixed-signal and other semiconductors. We estimate that our revenue market segment share among total foundries worldwide was 45% in 2012. We also offer design, mask making, bumping, probing, assembly and testing services.
We believe that our large capacity, particularly for advanced technologies, is a major competitive advantage. Please see “— Manufacturing Capacity and Technology” and “— Capacity Management and Technology Upgrade Plans” for a further discussion of ourcapacity.
We count among our customers many of the world’s leading semiconductor companies, ranging from fabless semiconductor and system companies such as Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Altera Corporation, Broadcom Corporation, Marvell Semiconductor Inc., MediaTek Inc., NVIDIA Corporation, OmniVision Technologies and Qualcomm Incorporated, to integrated device manufacturers such as LSI Corporation, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments Inc. Fabless semiconductor and system companies accounted for approximately 85%, and integrated device manufacturers accounted for approximately 15% of our net sales in 2012.
…
We manufacture semiconductors on silicon wafers based on proprietary circuitry designs provided by our customers or third party designers. Two key factors that characterize a foundry’s manufacturing capabilities are output capacity and fabrication process technologies. Since our establishment, we have possessed the largest capacity among the world’s dedicated foundries. We also believe that we are the technology leader among the dedicated foundries in terms of our net sales of advanced semiconductors with a resolution of 65-nanometer and below, and are one of the leaders in the semiconductor manufacturing industry generally. We are the first semiconductor foundry with proven low-k interconnect technology in commercial production from the 0.13 micron node down to 28-nanometer node. Following our commercial production based on 65-nanometer process technology in 2006, we also unveiled 55-nanometer process technology in 2007. Our 65-nanometer and 55-nanometer technologies are the third-generation proprietary processes that employ low-k dielectrics. In 2008, we also qualified our 45-nanometer and 40-nanometer process technologies with ultra low-k dielectrics and advanced immersion lithography. In the fourth quarter of 2011, we have begun volume production of 28-nanometer products with first-generation high-k/metal gate transistor. In 2012, we continued 20-nanometer technology development to provide migration path from 28-nanometer for both performance driven products and mobile computing applications.
…
Our capital expenditures in 2010, 2011 and 2012 were NT$186,944 million, NT$213,963 million and NT$246,137 million (US$8,322 million, translated from a weighted average exchange rate of NT$29.577 to US$1.00), respectively. Our capital expenditures in 2013 are expected to be approximately US$9 billion, which, depending on market conditions, may be adjusted later. Prior to 2012, our capital expenditures were funded by our operating cash flow. Starting 2012, our capital expenditures were partially funded by the issuance of corporate bonds. The capital expenditures for 2013 are also expected to be funded in similar ways as in 2012. In 2013, we anticipate our capital expenditures to focus primarily on the following:
- adding production capacity to our 300mm wafer fabs;
- developing new process technologies in 20-nanometer, and 16-nanometer nodes;
- expanding buildings/facilities for Fab 12, Fab 14 and Fab 15;
- other research and development projects;
- capacity expansion for mask and backend operations; and
- solar and solid state lighting businesses.
…
… We plan to continue to invest significant amounts on research and development in 2013, with the goal of maintaining a leading position in the development of advanced process technologies. Our research and development efforts have allowed us to provide our customers access to certain advanced process technologies, such as 65-nanometer, 55-nanometer, 45-nanometer, 40-nanometer and 28-nanometer technology for volume production, prior to the implementation of those advanced process technologies by many integrated device manufacturers and our competitors. In addition, we expect to advance our process technologies further down to 20/16-nanometer and below in the coming years to maintain our technology leadership. We will also continue to invest in research and development for our mainstream technologies offerings to provide function-rich process capabilities to our customers.
…
We manufacture a variety of semiconductors based on designs provided by our customers. Our business model is commonly called a “dedicated semiconductor foundry.” The foundry segment of the semiconductor industry as a whole experienced rapid growth over the last 26 years since our inception. As the leader of the foundry segment of the semiconductor industry, our net sales and net income were NT$419,538 million and NT$161,605 million in 2010, NT$427,081 million and NT$134,201 million in 2011, and NT$506,249 million (US$17,427 million) and NT$166,159 million (US$5,720 million) in 2012, respectively. The sales in 2011 increased slightly by 1.8% from 2010, mainly due to growth in customer demand and more favorable product mix, partially offset by the effect of U.S. dollar depreciation. Our sales in 2012 increased by 18.5% from 2011, mainly due to continuous growth in customer demand and increase in sales of our 28-nanometer products, which commanded a higher selling price.
…
Technology Migration.
Our operations utilize a variety of process technologies, ranging from mainstream process technologies of 0.5 micron or above circuit resolutions to advanced process technologies of 28-nanometer circuit resolutions. The table below presents a breakdown of wafer sales by circuit resolution during the last three years:
Percentage of total wafer revenue (1) for the year ended December 31
Resolution
2010
2011
2012
28-nanometer
–
1%
12%
40/45-nanometer
17%
26%
27%
65-nanometer
29%
29%
23%
90-nanometer
14%
9%
9%
0.11/0.13 micron
12%
8%
6%
0.15 micron
4%
6%
4%
0.18 micron
13%
12%
11%
0.25 micron
4%
4%
4%
0.35 micron
4%
3%
2%
≥0.5 micron
3%
2%
2%
Total
100%
100%
100%
(1) Percentages represent wafer revenue by technology as a percentage of total revenue from wafer sales, which exclude revenue associated with design, mask making, probing, and testing and assembly services. Total wafer revenue excludes sales returns and allowances.
…
Our gross margin fluctuates with the level of capacity utilization, price change and product mix, among other factors. In 2012, our gross margin increased to 48.1% of net sales from 45.4% of net sales in 2011. The higher margin in 2012 was primarily due to higher capacity utilization and cost reductions, which contributed favorably to our gross margin by 5.5 and 2.8 percentage points, respectively, partially offset by price decline and higher portion of wafer sales in 28-nanometer technology bearing lower than corporate average margins at initial production stage, which negatively impacted our gross margin by 5.3 percentage points.
…
… Research and development expenditures increased by NT$6,572 million in 2012, or 19.4%, from 2011, mainly due to a higher level of research activities for 20-nanometer technologies and higher employee profit sharing expenses and bonus. In 2011, research and development expenditures increased by NT$4,123 million, or 13.9%, from 2010, mainly due to higher spending in developing 20-nanometer technology, partially offset by lower employee profit sharing expenses and bonus. We plan to continue to invest significant amounts in research and development in 2013.
…
Capital expenditures in 2012 were primarily related to:
- adding production capacity to 300mm wafer fabs;
- developing process technologies including 20-nanometer node and below;
- expanding buildings/facilities for Fab 12, Fab 14 and Fab 15;
- other research and development projects;
- capacity expansion for mask and backend operations; and
- solar and solid state lighting businesses
…
Employees
The following table sets out, as of the dates indicated, the number of our full-time employees serving in the capacities indicated.
As of December 31
Function
2010
2011(1)
2012(1)
Managers
3,142
3,601
3,865
Professionals
12,729
13,665
15,844
Assistant Engineers/Clericals
2,650
2,796
3,079
Technicians
14,711
15,395
16,479
Total
33,232
35,457
39,267
The following table sets out, as of the dates indicated, a breakdown of the number of our full-time employees by geographic location:
Location of Facility and Principal Offices as of December 31
2010
2011(1)
2012(1)
Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan
20,703
20,107
21,534
Southern Taiwan Science Park, Taiwan
9,158
9,041
8,964
Central Taiwan Science Park, Taiwan
29
1,410
3,558
Taoyuan County, Taiwan
–
1,333
1,378
China
1,903
2,134
2,353
North America
1,355
1,343
1,395
Europe
48
53
50
Japan
32
32
32
Korea
4
4
3
Total
33,232
35,457
39,267
(1) Including employees of our non-wholly owned subsidiaries, Xintec Inc. and Mutual-Pak Technology Co., Ltd., since 2011.
As of December 31, 2012, our total employee population was 39,267 with an educational makeup of 3.6% Ph.Ds, 34.4% masters, 25.9% university bachelors, 12.8% college degrees and 23.3% others. Among this employee population, 50.2% were at a managerial or professional level. …
…
Major Shareholders
The following table sets forth certain information as of February 28, 2013, with respect to our common shares owned by (i) each person who, according to our records, beneficially owned five percent or more of our common shares and by (ii) all directors and executive officers as a group.
Names of Shareholders
Number of Common Shares Owned
Percentage of Total Outstanding Common Shares
National Development Fund
1,653,709,980
6.38%
Capital World Investors
1,488,857,477
5.74%
Directors and executive officers as a group
291,940,745
1.13%
Windows RT Buzz: only the naming will disappear?
Microsoft defends Windows RT as necessary disruption [CNET, March 21, 2013]
vs.
Microsoft to merge Windows RT into next-generation Windows OS [DIGITIMES, March 27, 2013]
These headlines tell everything. And don’t forget, end of March is the end of PRISM when all top level decisions for the next fiscal year have already been taken. Now put these two media reports against each other:
[Michael] Angiulo [corporate vice president, Windows Planning, Hardware & PC Ecosystem] says Microsoft has good reason to stick with the platform.“It was a ton of work for us and we didn’t do the work and endure the disruption for any reason other than the fact that there’s a strategy there that just gets stronger over time.Looking at things now like power performance and standby time and passive [fanless] form factors. When we launched Windows 8, it was really competitive with a full-sized iPad. A lot of that was made possible by the ARM [chip] architecture.If you look forward a year or two and you look at the performance output of ARM chips, those are some really capable chips. I think it has a very bright future.People are talking about legacy desktop software not running, but they don’t think about the customer benefit of only running modern apps. The only apps that you install from the Windows store are the kind, that as a customer, you can manage your rights to.Let’s say you drop that PC in a pool. Well, you get a new one and then you just redownload [the apps]. That’s the kind of model people are used to with a phone or tablet today. I can maintain all the apps in the [Microsoft] store and reset with a single switch.So, on Windows RT, the user experience stays consistent over time. That’s a big benefit. And as the number of apps grow in the store, that value promise only gets stronger.And on the ARM side, there is a propensity for a much higher percentage of PCs that are going to ship with mobile broadband [3G/4G], precisely because ARM PCs have even longer battery life [than Intel PCs] on connected standby [when a device is in standby mode but still connected to e-mail, social networking sites, and the Internet in general].” |
Microsoft will no longer launch products under its Windows RT line and will instead merge the product line into the software giant’s next-generation Windows, codenamed Blue, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.Although the PC supply chain had pushed the Windows on ARM (WoA) platform aggressively, the Windows RT’s name, which has misled most consumers into believing that the operating system is able to support all existing x86 Windows programs, the lack of apps, as well as compatibility issues have all significantly damaged demand.The next-generation of Windows is expected to make its first appearance at the Microsoft Build Developer Conference 2013, hosted from June 26-28 in San Francisco, the US.The sources believe that Wintel PC demand is likely to drop significantly before Intel and Microsoft’s next-generation products show up in the second half of the year. |
With that the strategy to stick to Windows RT as a product, but not as a name, is crystall clear. Nevertheless between these two news dates we have other news articles in the world which are casting doubts on the future of Windows RT as a product.
Look at the bulk of news headlines between March 21 and March 28 to see the kind of mixed reporting. As these headlines coming from the proper Google search:
- Is Microsoft merging Windows RT into Windows 8 for “Blue” update?
- Microsoft Surface Pro, RT, Windows 8 Phones Battle For Confused Customers: Who Wins?
- Microsoft: Windows RT Not Going Anywhere
- Intel vs. Microsoft: how Atom processors could kill Windows RT [The Verge, March 21, 2013]
- Microsoft defends Windows RT. Did it do more harm than good? [Computerworld, March 22, 2013]
- Microsoft defends Windows RT but dodges responding to key criticism [BGR, March 22, 2013]
- Microsoft Exec Promises Windows RT Will Get Better ‘Over Time’ [Business Insider, March 22, 2013]
- Windows RT to also receive Windows Blue, Surface RT users can now rejoice
- Should Microsoft Give Up on Windows RT?
- Microsoft exec: Look at the bright side of Windows RT
- Microsoft Says Windows RT Is the Future, But Can it Survive the Present? [CIO, March 22, 2013]
- Microsoft Exec Sings High Praise for ARM and Windows RT, Downplays Legacy App Support
- Microsoft Still Doesn’t Get It [Seeking Alpha, March 23, 2013]
- Microsoft: Windows RT will get better over time, just you wait
- Microsoft Stands Strong Behind Windows RT
- This Week in Tablets: Does Windows Blue spell the end for RT?
- Do we need another Windows OS? [CNET, March 23, 2013]
- Surface RT, Windows RT Dead? Microsoft Defends It Against OS Attacks
The endgame for ST-Ericsson, other SoC vendors like Allwinner to benefit tremendously from Ericsson’s advanced thin modems
As ST-Ericsson: Fundamental repositioning for modem, APE and ModAps spaces [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 8, 2012] was considered impossible after STMicroelectronics and Texas Intruments are exiting the mobile market as there is no chance to compete with aggressive SoC vendors from PRC and the market #2 MediaTek from Taiwan [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 12, 2012] now we have the endgame of ST-Ericsson as decided by its parent companies.
Note that modemless SoC vendors like Allwinner, Rockchip etc. will tremedously benefit from this type of endgame, as Ericsson will become a modem-only SoC vendor with the so called thin modem business taken over. This part of ST-Ericsson is dealing with the highly strategic and competitive LTE multimode thin modems (including 2G, 3G and 4G multimode), i.e. the well proven in last year trials Thor M7400 SoC solution (to come in devices of H2 2013), and its enhanced (with Single RF Chip Carrier Aggregation and ability to achieve 150Mbps) mass market follow-up, the Thor M7450 SoC solution (designed in 28nm, now sampling and to come in devices of 2014) based on the revolutionary architecture introduced in Thor M7400 which enables market-leading power consumption. All the so called legacy modems (as well as the remaining parts of the ST-Ericsson business) will be taken over by STMicroelectronics, but no further development will be done for them (and only selective development for the remaining parts of the ST-Ericsson business).
Financial responsibility for the respective businesses was taken over by the two parent companies from March 1st, 2013. The break up will be completed in Q3 2013. While Ericsson and STMicroelectronics will take over around 1800 and 950 people (employees and contractors) respectively. Of the remaining workforce approx. 1600 will be be made redundant in the process. For the remaining 200 employees and contractors in the so called connectivity business the future will be decided by the outcome of selling that business.
Here are
- the details,
and then
- a collection of related press releases
Details
STMicroelectronics, Ericsson End Venture After Failed Sale [Bloomberg, March 18, 2013]
“In 2009 the situation was different, we started with a great base of European customers,” STMicroelectronics Chief Executive Officer Carlo Bozotti said on a conference call. “Unfortunately this customer base has changed.”
…
Potential buyers that were approached, including customer Samsung Electronics Co., declined to make an offer, people familiar with the matter said last week. Samsung is “a great customer for us and we continue to work for a lot of products with this company,” Bozotti said today, declining to comment on any talks for Samsung taking over the venture.
STMicro, Ericsson split mobile chip unit, 1,600 jobs go [Reuters, March 18, 2013]
“All possible scenarios were considered but the option announced today was always a real possibility,” STMicro chief executive Carlo Bozotti told a conference call on Monday.
ST takes on mobile chips…but not the market [EETimes, March 18, 2013]
In a conference call Monday morning (March 18) Carlo Bozotti, CEO of ST (Geneva, Switzerland) promised continued support for ST-Ericsson’s existing products and customers but also indicated that ST would not be trying to replicate ST-Ericsson’s platform-level engagement with the mobile devices market. This approach puts a question-mark over the future relevance of ST’s fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) manufacturing process, a proprietary technology that is out of the mainstream of global CMOS manufacturing, but which has reportedly shown technical advantages for mobile applications where power consumption and battery life are key parameters.
…
“ST will not continue the so-called ModAp – ModAp is the integration of the application processor and the modem in one chip – in terms of new development,” said Bozotti during the conference call. “Of course, we will go on as long as needed with the existing products to support our customers. So we have not called – and we will not call – for any end of life.”
Moving on to stand-alone application processors, Bozotti said: “Of course our focus area is the digital consumer, is automotive. In the case of portable equipment we will not offer a complete platform for the market. However, we may develop dedicated solutions using our FD-SOI technologies for high volume requirements in the area of portable equipment.”
…
With regard to the decision to exit the joint venture Bozotti said: “This is extremely intense R&D. The dynamic of the wireless market is with increasing polarization in terms of key customers in this market. And also we are seeing an increasing trend of vertical integration of their activities including the design and manufacture of semiconductor chips,” Bozotti said.
Ericsson’s Management Hosts Strategic Way Forward For ST-Ericsson Conference (Transcript) [Seeking Alpha, March 18, 2013]
In April of 2012, last year, ST-Ericsson announced its strategic plan. And in October of 2012, Ericsson and ST together announced that we are, as parents, conducting a strategic review of the business plan and the future ownership structure of the joint venture. In — on December 10 of the last year, 2012, ST then makes an announcement that they intend to exit as a shareholder in ST-Ericsson. And then following that announcement, Ericsson, on December 20, announces to all of you that we have taken a decision to not acquire the full majority of ST-Ericsson. Now during a few months here in the beginning of the year, we have been exploring various strategic options for the ST-Ericsson assets, and that’s obviously the context of today’s call.
Key Points
- Ericsson and STMicroelectronics have agreed on a separation of the
company into three parts – Ericsson takes on thin modem operations
The aim that we have with this takeover is obviously to maximize the value. And also, we believe that the modems here have a good fit into the strategies of our company. ST-Ericsson, then, unfortunately will have to carry out the restructuring activity in the remaining — remainder of the joint venture, we’ll come back to that.
- Agreement aims to maximize assets and the future plans for both
parent companies as it relates to their respective strategies- ST-Ericsson to restructure current operations prior to separation
- The closing of the transaction is expected during Q3, subject to
regulatory approvals- Costs for implementing this strategic plan, including Ericsson’s part of
ST-Ericsson’s restructuring, is provided for in the provisions of SEK
3.3 B. taken in 2012
So how will this work? So if we look at the split-up of the joint venture, and we again start with Ericsson on the right-hand side of this slide: We take on the design, the development and the sales of the LTE multimode thin modems, and that includes, then, 2G, 3G and 4G multimode. This will be approximately 1,800 employees and contractors. The main sites will be Sweden, Germany, India and China. And we will then be financially responsible for this part of the JV from March 1, 2013.
On the ST side, they will take over the existing products in the JV other than the LTE modems, then, and then also all other related business as well as certain assembly and test facilities. This will be approximately 950 employees and with the main sites being France and Italy. And they will also then be financially responsible for that from 1st of March this year.
In the JV, then, they will — it will be then restructuring activity that have commenced today. And the remainder of the joint venture will then be, over time here, reduced and run down. And then also, we will look at selling the connectivity business. All in all, this is approximately 1,600 employees and contractors, and you’ll have around 200 of those being employees and contractors in the connectivity business. So this is the split-up of the JV.
Modems of Strategic Value for Industry
Ericsson takes control of the thin modem business targeting smartphones and tablets
– Significant amounts invested to establish industry leading technology and IP
– Leverage our heritage and investment in leading research, global standardization and industry leading infrastructure solutions- Thin modem architecture covers
– Low power, highly integrated multi-mode multiband modems for GSM/GPRS/EDGE, TDSCDMA, HSPA+, LTE (TDD/FDD), LTEAdvanced
– Widest array of frequency bands and a feature set that includes Single RF Chip Carrier Aggregation, VoLTE and IMS
First of all, we’ve said in the past that we believe that the modem assets have a strategic value to the wireless industry, so this is consistent with what we’re trying to explain here. We are taking over the thin modem business, and the target market is the smartphones and the tablets. We’ve invested significant amounts of money to establish this position from a product perspective, from a testing perspective and where we are with the thin modems today within the joint venture. This also leverages our heritage and the investment in our R&D standardization and in, of course, our leading infrastructure solutions.
In terms of the thin modem architecture and what it covers, we believe we have advantages on low power. It’s highly integrated multimode, multi-baseband, with a variety of GSM, GPRS, EDGE, TD, HSPA, LTE TDD/FDD and then LTE Advanced. So it’s very comprehensive. And of course, some of the other features that will — sets this apart: It’s a Single RF Chip Carrier Aggregation. It includes VoLTE and IMS.
Total Addressable Market
+400 m thin modem units in 2013 for smartphones/tablets- Best estimate of the market for thin modems is an ASP of approximately USD 13-18 in 2013.
- Ericsson aims to be top 3 in that market
- Connected devices: M2M, Modules (via industrial partners), and other data centric devices
- License business model towards ModAp market: +400 m ModAp market
… in terms of the market itself that we’re targeting. Again, focus on the thin modems, and we see over 400 million units on the thin modems in 2013. That’s the green area, and that’s growing at 10%. We see the average sales price of approximately $13 to $18. And it’s — our aspiration is to be in the top 3 in this market.
In addition, there are other markets to connected devices: machine-to-machine, modules, data-centric devices. And then of course, there’s an opportunity to move toward a license business model with the ModAp in the ModAp market. But we’re very clear: the thin modem is a — going to be our focus, it’s going to be a focused organization. And again, it’s a 400 million unit in 2013, moving to greater than 600 million, from a market perspective, in 2017.
…
Next Steps and Ambitions
If we then look at the next steps. So we will now obviously finalize the formal break-up of the JV. ST-Ericsson will carry out the necessary restructuring of what this will remain — will — what will remain in the JV, and then we will move on with the necessary approvals. We think that the break-up will be completed by the third quarter 2013.
If we look at the product portfolio, then. The modem 7450 will have a volume ramp-up in the first half of 2014. And then it will be — the follow-up product will be the M7500. That work — will have a volume ramp-up in the first half of 2015. When we look at these — we are excited about the modem company, obviously, and the thin modem products. We will look at success in an 18- to 24-month time frame. Again, as Doug mentioned, the — our ambition is to be top 3 in the thin modem market and, of course, that this segment should add to Ericsson overall profitability.
Introducing ST-Ericsson latest advanced LTE modem (This is a slideshow without audio) [STEricssonVideos YouTube channel, Feb 24, 2013] i.e. the M7450
[the previous transcript continued]
Question-and-Answer Session
…
So what we’ve been trying to tell you is that we take over the thin modem products, which is, today, it’s 7400 which the mass-market product will be 7450. The legacy modem products will all be with ST, so this is the thin modem business. And all the assumptions around the ramp-up and so forth is in this slide: We have — the first half of 2014 will be the volume ramp-up of 7450, first half of 2015 will be the ramp-up of M7500. So that’s the business that Ericsson is taking over. And it’s correct to assume that, this year, in 2013, we don’t think there will be a lot of revenue on these modems.
…
Q: … I guess I would have thought that, if your position in thin modem multimode LTE was that exciting and an established semis company might have been better positioned to leverage that. …
… we … think that the modem, thin modem, business has a strategic value for the industry. We think it’s important, with more alternatives. That is — obviously goes hand-in-hand with our company overall mission around the network society, 50 billion connected devices, and so forth. So from that point of view, I think the strategic intent is quite clear. I also think that we have been reviewing a lot of different strategic options. This, what we present today, is the best solution out of all the different options that we have looked at. And we are here today to really welcome the modem company into Ericsson. And we are also convinced that we will be able to add value to the industry, which we have been stating for, for quite some time now.
… first and foremost, we have a product, okay? That product is in the market. It‘s been trialed, so the development effort has been worthwhile. We also have customers. I also think that, Ericsson working with the modem company and other partners in the industry, we have a very important role to play when it comes to connecting the access points with the networks. And I think we have — I think we have a very good role to play in this, and also very skilled engineers. That kind of work together end to end.
Q: … you’ve said your ambition is to be a top 3 player in this market. So would this mean that you may have to raise your investments in this business going forward? And secondly, you mentioned good customer traction with your existing thin modems, but I believe 7400 was being sampled, too, last year. But you are essentially indicating that there will be no revenue for — from 7400 this year. So I mean, how does this change with 7450? Are you already seeing some customers signing up on the product?
… We have — first and foremost, what we will take over once this — we have gotten all of the regulatory approvals is a thin modem operation with around 1,800 employees and contractors. We think that — given the portfolio ambition and the sales ambition we have, that the resources we have in that unit will be sufficient to deliver on the ambitions. So that’s what we have said and that’s what we will repeat again.
Showcasing Thor M7400 at CES [STEricssonVideos YouTube channel, Jan 15, 2013]
[the previous transcript continued]
Just to start with the — as you say, the 7400, that has been in customer testing. It’s been in field operator testing in the past, first global field operator testing. The 7450 has always been our expected mass product. 7450 has a smaller footprint, carrier aggregation and a variety of different other attributes, but it’s based on the 7400 software that has gone through this testing. So we’ve had very positive feedback and interest on the 7400, in terms of the architecture, and certainly on the 7450 and our current plans and timelines that we have with the 7450.
Q: So basically, if I look at the market, most of your competition is moving towards an integrated model where you have baseband and apps processor, but it seems that you are trying to focus more on the modem technology. And I’m just trying to understand what do you — why do you think this strategy is going to be more successful than what your competition is doing. And also, basically, your ambition is to be a top 3 player in this market long term. Once we get there, what do you think would be the long-term profitability in this business?
What we’re doing is we have been a very focused team, just as Jan said. As we’ve made this split, it’s going to be a very focused, competent team that’s just focused on the thin modems. As we presented earlier, we believe there’s a big-enough market in the thin modem area. And certainly, our expertise is more on the modem side than the application processor side, and that’s where we want to put our focus and our strength.
… then on the profitability, I think that what we will — the way we will measure success here in this business will be — will obviously be around achieving a top 3 position in the thin modem market. We have talked about the size of that market in terms of 400 million units, approximately, for 2013; also with the ASP there of between $13 and $18. We also will measure success in getting high volumes of the 7450 modem. And then we will also measure success when this LTE thin multimode modem business adds to the Ericsson group profitability. So those are the first, I would say, midterm objectives. And as we have said before, we will measure this in an 18- to 24-months perspective, so that’s kind of the time frame. We are — we also, then, have given you an indication on the resources in the unit that we take over, and we have also said that we think that this will be sufficient for the product portfolio ambition and so forth. So I think we have given you quite a lot for you to model a possible break-even point and so forth of this business.
Q: I would like to start quickly on the — well, what you’re planning to do actually with the ModAp business. So STMicro told us this morning that they are planning to discontinue basically working on that. And you are now clearly focusing on making your same — standalone modem. But do you have the ambition to eventually license your IP so that other companies that don’t have the existing modem capabilities are able to do ModAp processors?
Yes. So our primary focus is going to be the thin modem product itself. We certainly will look at machine-to-machine connected devices and potential for licensing the thin modem to customers that have the application processor. And that’s probably where we are right now in terms of our business plan and our revenue models.
Q: … as you fairly mentioned, there’s only one company shipping such products today, but there is also a lot of roadmaps that we’ve seen from some other of your — some of your other new competitors now are planning to release this kind of products as well at the end of this year and early next year. So how do you expect that to play over the long term? Do you think you have something that already gives you a head start of 6 month or 1 year on this front?
… we feel very committed to this thin modem because we have been monitoring the progress of not only ours but our competition in terms of the attributes and the characters of the unique selling points. We’ve invested a lot in this thin modem. We’ve seen the test results and where we see going forward with the 7450. So we’re confident, but we also know it’s going to be a tough market. But as we said in the past 6 months, we believe this is an asset that’s important to the industry.
Q: … will it be treated as licensing revenues?
No.
Demonstrating 150Mbps with Thor M7450 [STEricssonVideos YouTube channel, Feb 27, 2013]
THOR M7450 – LTE ADVANCED [ST-Ericsson product microsite, Feb 24, 2013]
Bringing Carrier Aggregation to the mainstream market
With the roll out of LTE and LTE Advanced technologies, device manufacturers face a number of new challenges. Operators require terminals that support an increased number of frequency bands and consumers expect increased data speed and improved battery lifetime. Device makers, however, cannot compromise device design and will need modem solutions that can do more within the same footprint.
Carrier Aggregation is one of the most important features in LTE Advanced that helps to address these challenges. It overcomes the fragmentation of the frequency spectrum by using multiple component carriers to increase the transmission bandwidth and data rate for an individual user.
The Thor M7450 is a multimode multiband platform supporting Carrier Aggregation with a single chip RF transceiver and support for over 17 bands. The complete modem is a highly integrated two chip solution with integrated memory. It delivers download speeds up to 150Mbps and is based on the revolutionary architecture introduced in Thor M7400 which enables market-leading power consumption.
Thor M7450 solves the design challenges and adds a number of new features in a solution footprint which makes it possible for phone manufacturers add LTE advanced without increasing size.
HIGHLIGHTS
For global devices
LTE FDD/TDD, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, GSM
Single radio transceiver with support for 17+ bands
A streamlined modem
Highly integrated two chip solution with integrated RAM and single chip RF Carrier Aggregation
Power efficient architecture
For all devices
Interfaces for data devices and smartphone application processors
Complete and pre-tested reference design
Thor M7450 Carrier Aggregation [STEricssonVideos YouTube channel, Feb 26, 2013]
THOR™ M7400 LTE AND HSPA+ [ST-Ericsson product microsite, Feb 15, 2011]
Paves the way for global LTE devices
The Thor™ M7400 is a new generation of multimode mobile broadband modem. It
supports the latest LTE and HSPA+ technologies. The small form factor and high power efficiency of the M7400 enable slim form factor smartphones, tablets and other mobile broadband enabled devices. The advanced multimode RF design offers new level of flexibility to support regional LTE FDD/TDD/HSPA bands in Asia, Europe and North America in combination with global HSPA/EDGE.
A breakthrough in modem architecture delivers an optimum combination of hardware acceleration, for lowest power consumption, and flexible execution in software allowing feature and performance enhancements in existing hardware.
Equipped with the latest communication interfaces it enables efficient integration between application processor and modem, including memory-less modem design when combining with an application processor.
HIGHLIGHTS
Truly global
LTE FDD/TDD, HSPA+, EDGE
Radio supporting up to 16 LTE/WCDMA/GSM bands
A streamlined modem
Smallest two-chip thin modem solution
Power efficient architecture
Highly integrated radio solution
For all devices
Interfaces for data devices and smartphone application processors
Memory-less modem design possible when combined with an application processor
Complete and pre-tested reference design
Making a CS fallback from LTE to 3G, and back again, while streaming video [STEricssonVideos YouTube channel, Feb 27, 2013]
CS-Fallback – An Introduction [WirelessMoves, Feb 19, 2012]
One approach to deploying LTE without packet switched voice call functionality at the beginning is to instruct mobile devices to use a 2G and 3G network when the user makes or receives a voice call and return to LTE afterwards. This solution is referred to as CS fallback and has been specified in 3GPP TS 23.272. As it’s likely that it will be deployed over time in quite a number of networks and used over many years, I thought I have once again a closer look at the specs and write a little primer about it. A little warning: This is somewhat of a propeller head post which requires some background knowledge on the circuit switched core network of GSM and UMTS and how LTE works.
…
International Roaming
As CS fallback is not a Voice over IP technology, it is likely that it will mostly be used in LTE networks before VOLTE becomes available. Furthermore, CS fallback can be used as a backup solution in roaming scenarios in which voice capable LTE devices are roaming in a foreign LTE network in which VOLTE is not available or in case no roaming agreement is in place for IMS voice services.
Pros and Cons of CS fallback
The main advantage of CS fallback is that it will enable network operators and device manufacturers to introduce LTE devices with a single cellular radio chip before VOLTE becomes available and network are deployed widely enough to prevent having to hand over the call to UMTS or GSM too often (how that is done is another story).
…
Summary
CS fallback sounds easy but from the description above I think it is quite clear that it is not quite that. A new interface to be implemented in the MSC software and the MME, the use of roaming retry functionality that is not used so far (please correct me if I’m wrong) and the new CS fallback flag in the location update message will keep network and device engineers busy for a while. A lot of effort for a “temporary” solution.
Making VoLTE [Voice over LTE] voice calls that last [STEricssonVideos YouTube channel, Feb 27, 2013]
What is VoLTE | Voice over LTE | Tutorial [Radio-Electronics.com, Feb 18, 2010]
The Voice over LTE, VoLTE scheme was devised as a result of operators seeking a standardised system for transferring voice traffic over LTE. Originally LTE was seen as a completely IP cellular system just for carrying data, and operators would be able to carry voice either by reverting to 2G / 3G systems or by using VoIP.
…
In many ways the implementation of VoLTE at a high level is straightforward. The handset or phone needs to have software loaded to provide the VoLTE functionality. This can be in the form of an App.
The network then requires to be IMS compatible.
While this may appear straightforward, there are many issues for this to be made operational, especially via the vagaries of the radio access network where time delays and propagation anomalies add considerably to the complexity.
See also: LTE / Voice calls and LTE / Enhanced voice quality [both in Wikipedia]
The world’s first dual mode high definition VoLTE [STEricssonVideos YouTube channel, Feb 26, 2013]
Company press releases
ST-ERICSSON UNVEILS ULTRAFAST THOR M7450 LTE ADVANCED MODEM WITH FIRST SINGLE RF CARRIER AGGREGATION SOLUTION [press release, Feb 24, 2013]
Thor M7450 Modem includes support for 150Mbps and an extensive number of frequency bands.
Barcelona, February 24, 2013 – Today at Mobile World Congress 2013, ST-Ericsson, a world leader in wireless platforms and semiconductors, announced the Thor™ M7450 LTE Advanced modem which uses a single radio for Carrier Aggregation. The M7450 supports all relevant 3GPP specified frequency bands having 10 flexible RF ports enabling 17 frequency bands or more in the same device. With this modem, ST-Ericsson significantly increases the number of LTE bands compared to devices currently on the market allowing device manufacturers to address a global market with less number of device variants.
With the roll out of LTE and LTE Advanced technologies, device manufacturers face a number of new challenges. Operators require terminals that support an increased number of frequency bands and consumers expect increased data speed and improved battery lifetime. Phone makers, however, cannot compromise device design and will need modem solutions that can do more in the same footprint.
“There is an ever increasing demand for mobile broadband access no matter where you are in the world, making the ability to efficiently handle data traffic a top priority for our customers and operators,” says Staffan Iveberg, Senior Vice President of Thor Modem Solutions for ST-Ericsson. “Next-generation modems need to combine extensive frequency band support to offer flexibility for operators and markets – all without increasing the modem size. ST-Ericsson is leading the way with the Thor M7450 LTE Advanced modem.”
Today, many operators only have 5 or 10 MHz bandwidth allocations in each frequency band for LTE which is insufficient for LTE Category 3 or 4 with data rates up to 100 or 150 Mbps. Carrier Aggregation allows bandwidth from two different frequency bands to be combined enabling higher data rates.
“With the Thor M7450, we are continuing to innovate in modem technology to bring increased download speed without compromising on size or power consumption,” continued Iveberg. “No one else is delivering a complete LTE Advanced modem that is both fast and power efficient in this compact size.”
The Thor M7450 is a two chip solution with integrated RAM to enable a compact size. The M7450 is designed in 28nm CMOS technology and builds on the revolutionary architecture introduced in Thor M7400 which delivers market-leading power consumption. It supports 3GPP Release 10, LTE category 4, with downlink speeds up to 150Mbps and VoLTE. With LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD, HSPA+, GSM and TD-SCDMA integrated in the same chipset, the M7450 addresses the need for a simple and cost effective solution for widespread global adoption of LTE devices.
The Thor M7450 is being demonstrated by ST-Ericsson in Barcelona this week and is currently sampling with customers.
For additional information, a white paper is available here.
CHANGING THE GAME: ST-ERICSSON UNVEILS NOVATHOR™ FAMILY OF SMARTPHONE PLATFORMS COMBINING ITS MOST ADVANCED APPLICATION PROCESSORS WITH THE LATEST GENERATION OF MODEMS [press release, Feb 15, 2011]
ST-Ericsson today announced three new application processors, the Nova A9600, A9540, A9500 together with two next generation modems the Thor M7400 and M7300 as well as two additions to its complete highly integrated smartphone platforms the NovaThor T5008 and U4500.
…
ST-Ericsson’s new Thor modems, the Thor M7400 and the Thor M7300, support the latest LTE and HSPA+ dual carrier technologies, while preserving backward compatibility with existing 3G/2G networks, in a small and highly-integrated radio solution that supports up to eight LTE/WCDMA/GSM frequency bands. These modems enable the development of truly global smartphones, tablets and many other mobile broadband-enabled devices.
…
The Thor M7400 can connect to 2G, 3G, TD-SCDMA, HSPA, HSPA+ dual carrier and LTE FDD/TDD networks. It offers peak download speeds of up to 100Mbps in LTE networks. The Thor M7400 supports voice calls via fallback to circuit-switched networks and via the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) standard, it is sampling Q2 2011.
ST-ERICSSON’S HIGH-PERFORMANCE MODEMS PAVE THE WAY FOR GLOBAL LTE DEVICES [press release, Feb 15, 2011]
… The Thor M7400 is the industry’s smallest and first two-chip LTE/HSPA+ modem, which also continues the low power consumption track record from ST-Ericsson’s market-leading HSPA+ modems. …
… “In Thor, ST-Ericsson’s engineers have achieved the optimum combination of hardware acceleration, for low power consumption, and execution in software, enabled by our in-house vector processing technology, which offers the flexibility to continuously add features and performance enhancements to existing chipset hardware,” said Jörgen Lantto, executive vice president, chief technology and strategy officer of ST-Ericsson. “Our radio solution is unique in that it supports the regional LTE FDD/TDD bands in use in Asia, Europe and North America, as well as HSPA/EDGE networks worldwide, allowing device manufacturers to offer truly global devices.”
The ThorM7400 and ThorM7300 modems are based on a common architecture, enabling ST-Ericsson and its customers to benefit from shorter time-to-market by re-using of modem certification and application processor interfaces across platforms, reducing time-to-market. The new Thor modems are also pin-to-pin compatible which enables customers to completely reuse their design across the two platforms. …
Available for operator testing and integration into devices from Q2 2011, the Thor M7400 modem can connect to 2G, 3G, TD-SCDMA, HSPA, HSPA+ dual carrier and LTE FDD/TDD networks. It offers peak download speeds of up to 100Mbps in LTE networks. The ThorM7400 supports voice calls via fallback to circuit-switched networks and via the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) standard.
…
ST-Ericsson developed high-performance vector processing (EVP) to efficiently handle complex computational tasks for all access standards. It is currently used in ST-Ericsson TD-SCDMA platforms.
ST-ERICSSON THOR M7400 MODEM SELECTED AS CES 2012 INNOVATIONS HONOREE [press release, Nov 8, 2011]
… The ST-Ericsson Thor M7400 4G multimode modem delivers the high power efficiency and compact footprint needed to enable sleek and slim form factor smartphones, tablets and other connected devices. The Thor M7400 is a groundbreaking multimode solution, supporting the latest LTE, HSPA+ and TD-HSPA mobile broadband technologies, and enables efficient integration between application processor and modem.
“The Thor M7400 sets a new standard for 4G multimode modems delivering extremely high data performance, low power consumption and size advantage over alternative solutions,” said Jörgen Lantto, executive vice president and chief technology officer at ST-Ericsson. “To further optimize its footprint, the Thor M7400 includes memory-less technology to optimally integrate with application processors in 4G mobile broadband devices. As a result, the Thor M7400 makes ultra-fast web browsing and high speed data connectivity ubiquitous, easy and reliable. We are proud to have our innovative product recognized by the Consumer Electronics Association.”
STMicroelectronics Announces Resignation of Didier Lamouche [STMicroelectronics press release, March 11, 2013]
STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM), a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronic applications, announced today that Didier Lamouche, Chief Operating Officer, whose operational role was suspended when he took the assignment as President and Chief Executive Officer at ST-Ericsson in December 2011, has decided to resign from the company effective March 31, 2013 to pursue other opportunities.
“Over the past years Didier has brought his strong contribution to ST, initially as the Chief Operating Officer, and then taking the challenging task to lead ST-Ericsson” saidCarlo Bozotti, President and CEO of ST. “We thank him for his outstanding contribution and wish him all the best for his future”.
About STMicroelectronics
ST is a global leader in the semiconductor market serving customers across the spectrum of sense and power and automotive products and embedded processing solutions. From energy management and savings to trust and data security, from healthcare and wellness to smart consumer devices, in the home, car and office, at work and at play, ST is found everywhere microelectronics make a positive and innovative contribution to people’s life. By getting more from technology to get more from life, ST stands for life.augmented.
In 2012, the Company’s net revenues were $8.49 billion. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com
ST-ERICSSON ANNOUNCES CHANGE IN EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT [ST-Ericsson press release, March 11, 2011]
Following the STMicroelectronics’ announcement issued earlier today, ST-Ericsson, a joint venture of STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), announced today that Didier Lamouche, president and chief executive officer, has decided to resign from the Company to pursue other opportunities.
Hans Vestberg, Chairman of the ST-Ericsson’s board of directors, said: “Didier Lamouche came into ST-Ericsson when the company was in a very challenging situation and has been instrumental in bringing the company to the point where it is more focused on strategy execution, a much lower breakeven point and positive momentum where the new LTE modem-based products are ready for market introduction this year. On behalf of ST-Ericsson’s board, I thank Didier for his strong contribution to ST-Ericsson.”
Lamouche will remain in his current position until March 31, 2013.
ABOUT ST-ERICSSON
ST-Ericsson is a world leader in developing and delivering a complete portfolio of innovative mobile platforms and cutting-edge wireless semiconductor solutions across the broad spectrum of mobile technologies. ST-Ericsson was established as a 50/50 joint venture by STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) in February 2009, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
www.stericsson.com
www.twitter.com/STEricssonForum
ST-ERICSSON ANNOUNCES GLOBAL WORKFORCE REVIEW [ST-Ericsson press release, March 18, 2011]
ST-Ericsson, a joint venture (JV) of STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), today announced a plan for a global workforce review, following the announcement made today by Ericsson and STMicroelectronics about the future of the joint venture.
The proposed key steps of agreement between the parent companies include each parent taking on parts of ST-Ericsson. It is proposed that Ericsson will assume approximately 1,800 employees and contractors, with the largest concentrations in Sweden, Germany, India and China. It is also proposed that ST will assume approximately 950 employees, primarily in France and in Italy, to support ongoing business and new products development within ST.
In addition, ST-Ericsson is pursuing external options for the future of the connectivity business, which employs around 200 employees worldwide.
In connection with the transfer of the majority of its workforce to the parent companies, ST-Ericsson will carry out restructuring of its current operations which could impact some 1,600 employees worldwide, out of which in a range of 500-700 are in Europe, including 400 to 600 positions in Sweden and 50 to 80 positions in Germany.
ST-Ericsson – with the support of both parent companies – will honor all obligations to employees, including those related to restructuring.
The proposed changes are subject to negotiations with work councils and employee representatives as required.
Ericsson and STMicroelectronics agree on strategic way forward for ST-Ericsson [STMicroelectronics press release, March 18, 2013]
Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) today announced an agreement on the way forward for the joint venture (JV) ST-Ericsson. As communicated by the parent companies in December 2012, both have been working together toward a strategic solution for the JV. After months of intensive joint work, the parent companies have selected the strategic option which maximizes their respective future prospects and growth plans.
The main steps agreed upon to split up the JV are the following:
- Ericsson will take on the design, development and sales of the LTE multimode thin modem products, including 2G, 3G and 4G multimode
- ST will take on the existing ST-Ericsson products, other than LTE multimode thin modems, and related business as well as certain assembly and test facilities
- Starting the close down of the remaining parts of ST-Ericsson.
The formal transfer of the relevant parts of ST-Ericsson to the parent companies is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2013, subject to regulatory approvals.
After the split up it is proposed that Ericsson will assume approximately 1,800 employees and contractors, with the largest concentrations in Sweden, Germany, India and China.
It is also proposed that ST will assume approximately 950 employees, primarily in France and in Italy, to support ongoing business and new products development within ST.
Today, it is also announced that Carlo Ferro is appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of ST-Ericsson, effective April 1, 2013. Ferro is currently Chief Operating Officer of ST-Ericsson and succeeds Didier Lamouche who, as previously announced, will pursue opportunities outside the company. Ferro will lead the work in securing both business continuity of ST-Ericsson and effective completion of the transition phase.
Hans Vestberg, President and CEO, Ericsson and Chairman of the Board of Directors, ST-Ericsson said: “I welcome Carlo Ferro as the new President and CEO of ST-Ericsson. Carlo has over twenty years of experience in the semiconductor industry and a strong track record in driving and managing complex transformation projects. He has been a contributor to the solid progress ST-Ericsson has made the past year in terms of strategy execution and significantly lowering the breakeven point.”
“In line with what we announced in December last year, we have now moved to the next step of our exit process and found a solution with Ericsson that fully aligns with our new strategy”, said Carlo Bozotti, President and CEO of ST. “The agreement made with Ericsson represents a major step forward in reaching our new financial model target and allows us to further strengthen the skillsets of our company, by welcoming in ST, at completion, additional strong competences to fuel growth in specific key product areas. Moreover, it protects and leverages the ongoing ST-Ericsson’s business, allowing us to reinforce our relationships with key customers, both of ST and of ST-Ericsson”.
With the proposed transfer of competencies from ST-Ericsson, ST will further strengthen its capabilities in the areas of application processors, RF, analog and power as well as software and complex system integration. In addition, ST-Ericsson’s portfolio includes devices that are complementary to ST’s focus on the fastest growing segments of the wireless semiconductor market, such as system-optimized analog mixed signal and power management devices, high-quality, low-power audio and video enhancements and innovative energy harvesting solutions.
The agreement is fully in line with ST’s financial model target of an operating margin of 10 percent or more and with plans to reduce quarterly net operating expenses to an average quarterly rate in the range of $600 million to $650 million by the beginning of 2014.
In addition, as a result of the agreement, ST expects to incur cash costs, including the covering of ST-Ericsson’s ongoing operations during the transition period and its restructuring costs, in the range of approximately $350 million to $450 million, narrower than the range provided at the end of January 2013.
Applying 2-16 cores of ARM Cortex-A15 in ‘2014 vintage’ LSI Axxia SoCs that will power next-generation LTE basestations from macrocells to small cells opening upto 1000 times faster access to the cloud by 2020
OR LSI Corporation’s ARM Cortex-A15 based 2-16 core SoCs with similar number of LSI’s specialized networking accelerators inside to drive the next-generation LTE base stations (from femto- through pico- and micro- to macro- and metrocells) boosting the cloud clients to get out of the current infancy of the mobile Internet OR Cooperation of LSI Corporation with ARM on highly scalable and energy efficient multicores and cache coherent interconnect for them within an SoC now enhanced with a joint LSI and Nokia-Siemens Network effort to improve real-time performance, I/O optimization, robustness and heterogeneous operating environments on multi-core SoCs, also carried out within the newly setup Linaro* Networking Group OR How ARM’s Cortex-A15 to A57 (32-bit to 64-bit) micro-architecture roadmap is going to be enhanced by an upto 16 core SoC architecture developed by LSI Corporation now and with more than 16 cores in the future (with Cortex-A57) which will enable Nokia-Siemens Networks to fullfill its vision of “1 GB per day revolution by 2020” for which a 1000x increase** in traffic throughput will be needed
* From p. 38 of ARM Annual Report 2012 [March 1, 2013] “In 2010 ARM helped launch Linaro, an open source software not-for-profit organisation which [among others] enriches the software toolkit for Android phones. By summer 2012 the results looked pretty impressive, with a reported 100% performance improvement for the Android 4 operating system. See Linaro Android is up to twice as fast as stock Android [AndroidAuthority.com, June 5, 2012]”
** Note that Qualcomm is also working along this vision as evidenced by its Products & Services: Wireless Networks Technology 1000x Data Challenge Overview [Aug 22, 2012], Spectrum [Sept 24, 2012], Small Cells [Oct 1, 2012] and Efficiency [Oct 1, 2012] pages of declaring its corporate intents. This was also one of the focus demos and presentations from Qualcomm on the MWC 2013 last week as evidenced by their The 1000x Mobile Data Challenge at Mobile World Congress [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, Feb 22, 2013] video serving also as a good background intro here
First watch the LSI Axxia video report from MWC 2013: Axxia Processor Family
LSI Axxia 5500 announced, 16-core ARM Cortex-A15 for network infrastructure [Charbax YouTube channel, Feb 28, 2013]
Troy Bailey: [5:40] Will be sampling in early third quarter … Mass production typically is a six to nine months process after that (i.e. 2014) to validate and also to work with customers to get their products ready to go out. [5:54]
Next watch 4G World 2012: The 1-Gigabyte Revolution [LightReadingTV YouTube, Nov 2, 2012] (on the same Oct 29 – Nov 1 conference)
For which it was announced at MWC 2013 that Nokia Siemens Networks and LSI Collaborate on Wireless Infrastructure Solutions [LSI press release, Feb 21, 2013]
LSI® Axxia® platform and SoC capabilities contribute to
higher-performance mobile broadband solutionsNokia Siemens Networks and LSI Corporation (NASDAQ: LSI) announced today a collaborative framework with ARM® processor based System-on-Chips (SoCs) that enable enhanced support for real-time performance, I/O optimization, robustness and heterogeneous operating environments on multi-core SoCs.
Nokia Siemens Networks is increasing investment in technology development in mobile broadband business and actively participating in Linaro Networking Group and to ARM ecosystem in general to enable better use of Open Source Linux®software and tools. This will both enhance performance of forthcoming base station BTS products as well as drive towards lower power consumption.
“LSI is very pleased to be collaborating with Nokia Siemens Networks on innovative mobile broadband solutions,” said Jim Anderson, general manager for LSI’s Networking Solutions Group. “The LSI Axxia line combines ARM processor cores with our unique Virtual Pipeline™ acceleration technology to create a platform for next-generation mobile broadband solutions and other applications. Our advanced software and emulation capabilities ensure accelerated time to market for our customers.”
Complement this with the following two videos produced by Qualcomm for MWC 2013:
– Neighborhood Small Cells [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, Feb 22, 2013]
– LTE Advanced Opportunistic Small Cells [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, Feb 22, 2013]
LSI Axxia background:
– Axxia Communication Processor AXM5500 [LSI promotion site, Feb 19, 2013]
Accelerating Next Generation Networks Mobile Networks
- Enabling one architecture for heterogenous networks
- Leveraging software and hardware investments
- Accelerating time-to-revenue
First 16 core ARM based Multicore Processor for Mobile Networks
The Axxia® Communication Processor AXM5500 product family is designed to accelerate performance and increase power efficiency for mobile networks. The Axxia 5500 series combines 16 ARM cores with LSI’s specialized networking accelerators to offer networking service providers more capable and intelligent wireless infrastructure equipment, including multi-radio base stations, mobile backhaul equipment and gateways.
Leading Technology
The AXM5500 is the industry’s first multicore communication processor to be available with ARM’s new CoreLink™ CCN-504 interconnect technology, which provides the end-to-end quality of service needed for networking applications.
Power Efficiency
LSI’s latest semiconductor manufacturing technology combined with ARM’s power efficient cores more than double the amount of data that can be processed by the Axxia 5500 at the same power level.
Extensive Scalability
The Axxia 5500 platform architecture can scale to meet the performance required for 4G LTE and other data intensive networking applications.
Networking Expertise
LSI’s unique Virtual Pipeline technology efficiently accelerates mobile data processing to allow carriers to deploy next generation applications to support massive data growth.
Software and Tools
LSI’s robust development tools and production quality data plane software accelerate time-to-market. The Axxia architecture’s scalability allows OEM software investment to be reused across the entire mobile network.
– The Data Deluge: Mobile Network Challenges & Solutions [LSICorporation YouTube channel, Sept 18, 2012]
– Bridging the Data Deluge Gap–The Role of Smart Silicon in Networks [by Michael Merluzzi, LSI Corporation in EETimes Design, Feb 28, 2013]
The proliferation of smart mobile devices, video, user-generated content and social networking, and the rising adoption of cloud services for both enterprise and consumer services are all driving explosive growth of wireless networking infrastructure. Globally, mobile data traffic is expected to grow 18-fold between 2011 and 2016, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month by 2016. Today, video traffic alone accounts for 40 percent of the wireless network load. The number of mobile devices connected to wireless networks will reach 25 billion, averaging 3.5 devices for every person on the planet, by 2015. That number is expected to double, to 50 billion, by 2020.This growth in storage capacity and network traffic is far outstripping the infrastructure build-out required to support it, a phenomenon known as the data deluge gap.
To bridge this gap, the industry needs to leverage smarter silicon technology to scale datacenter infrastructures more cost effectively. Besides helping close the data deluge gap, smarter data processing offers potential dramatic improvements in application performance. A recent survey of 412 European datacenter managers conducted by LSI revealed that while 93 percent acknowledged the critical importance of improving application performance, a full 75% do not feel that they are achieving the desired results. This indicates that there is rising pressure on datacenter managers to find smarter ways to push systems to do much more work within the same power and cost profiles.
Accelerating Networks
Smart software running on general-purpose processors, increasingly with multiple cores, is pervasive in the datacenter. Processors have long inhabited switches and routers, firewalls and load-balancers, WAN accelerators and VPN gateways. None of these systems are fast enough, however, to keep pace with the data deluge on its own, for a basic reason: general-purpose processors must treat every byte equally. While such equality is perfectly acceptable for system-level versatility, it is inadequate for low-level, high-volume packet processing.
This reality is driving the need for more intelligence in silicon that is purpose-built for specific networking applications to provide the right balance of performance, power consumption and programmability. Today’s smart silicon has reached a level of price/performance that makes it more cost-effective than adding general-purpose processors.
The latest generation of smart silicon typically features multiple cores of general-purpose processors and multiple acceleration engines for common networking functions, such as packet classification with deep packet inspection, security processing, especially for encryption and decryption, and traffic management.
Some of these acceleration engines are so powerful they can completely offload specialized network processing from general-purpose processors, making it easier to perform switching, routing and other networking functions entirely in smart line cards installed in servers and networking appliances to further accelerate overall network performance.
In many organizations today, microseconds matter, driving strong demand for faster response times. For trading firms, latency can be measured in millions of dollars per millisecond. For others, such as online retailers, every millisecond of delay can mean lost sales and fading customer loyalty. Tomorrow’s datacenter networks will need to be both faster and flatter, and therefore, smarter than ever. To eliminate the data deluge gap and maximize performance, systems need to be smarter, and those smarts will increasingly need to take the form of purpose-built silicon.
About the Author
Michael Merluzzi is product marketing manager in the Networking Solutions Group of LSI Corporation. Focusing on mobile backhaul applications, Merluzzi is responsible for marketing of integrated platform solutions and application-enabling software for the LSI Axxia family of multicore communication processors. Previously, he held a variety of roles in technical marketing, applications engineering and software development. Merluzzi holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and master’s degrees in Business Administration and Computer Engineering from Lehigh University.
– SoCs with more powerful cores need a more powerful interconnect [New Electronics, Jan 8, 2013]
… Troy Bailey is director of marketing with LSI. He said the company is seeing a ‘data deluge‘. “There is more and more data driven by video and mobile use. By most projections, the amount of data will outstrip the capacity of the infrastructure in the future, so what’s needed is faster devices to handle more data.”
Bailey also says there is a need for smarter devices. “We have to develop better ways to handle data; for instance, not moving data that doesn’t need to be moved. One of the ways we can do that is to add intelligence and processing throughout the network, rather than at gateways.”
The way to do this, in LSI’s opinion, is to add more and faster general purpose cores to network processors, but also to add acceleration engines to do those tasks with which general purpose cores struggle. “For example,” Bailey said, “there’s a lot of activity on a per packet basis – classifying, deep packet inspection. If you do these tasks with a general purpose processor, it will be slow and expensive.”
He has an analogy: “A mechanic with a basic set of tools can fix your car, but a specialist who works on one part of the car will have special tools and special knowledge.”
But, as he noted, traffic management is an important element in designing the architecture of a network processor. “If you can avoid sending data over the network, you’re better off and particularly so if you can cache it or put processing capacity closer to the network edge.”
LSI has a range of devices either available or in the planning stage. “We have single and dual core devices that perform the same tasks,” Bailey explained, “but we also have devices with dozens of cores. We see a strong opportunity to handle data in special purpose hardware, so devices will have more engines and more cores. This will need a balance between general purpose and special hardware.”
And the question of which cores to use has been under discussion. Until recently, LSI has based its network processors on PowerPC cores, but an announcement early in 2012 revealed ARM cores are now on the road map. “Some of these discussions are driven by customer requirements,” Bailey said. “The ARM architecture is strong and there’s a good ecosystem, so the move makes a lot of sense. LSI’s approach is based on hardware acceleration, which also makes sense, and we are not looking to use proprietary cores. So while a Cortex-A15 doesn’t necessarily bring more performance, it is more power efficient.”
Then comes the challenge of linking all these cores together. And LSI has turned again to ARM, taking a lead license for ARM’s CCN-504 interconnect. “We have helped ARM to define what’s required in such an interconnect. As you add more cores – particularly accelerators – you end up with a lot of compute elements and when that happens, there’s opportunities for bottlenecks. You could end up adding more cores, but getting lower performance,” Bailey contended.
Neil Parris is ARM’s interconnect product manager. He said CCN-504 had been developed specifically to address the issue of more cores. “It’s about providing coherency between the cpus and the I/O and about using data on chip.”
In some respects, it’s a consequence of integration. “There used to be a range of chips which needed to be connected,” Parris observed. “Now, it’s a single chip with multiple cores which is power critical and which needs to interface to the latest technology.”
CCN-504 – CCN stands for cache coherent network – is the first in a family of interconnects being developed to support future complex devices. “It supports four cpu clusters,” Parris said, “and each cluster can comprise up to four cores. It also supports ARM’s 64bit architecture, which is important for those people building servers.
“Each cpu cluster has an L2 cache, which is configurable to 2Mbyte, or 4Mbyte in the case of the Cortex-A15. The interconnect’s purpose is to join all the processors in a coherent manner, making sure all cores have a consistent view of memory.”
But CCN-504 isn’t ARM’s first cache coherent network. “That was the CCI-400,” Parris said. “That’s aimed at mobile applications with two clusters, including Big.LITTLE.”
Caching is an important element and one which supports Bailey’s view that you shouldn’t have to move data if you don’t have to. “Caches are important contributors to power efficiency and performance,” Parris pointed out. “The more data you have on chip, the fewer the accesses needed to external memory. It helps with power consumption and performance.”
CCN-504 has also been built with cores other than ARM’s in mind. The network can support up to 18 AMBA interfaces, which allows designers to take advantage of such functions as 40Gbit Ethernet, USB and serial ATA links. But it also features PCI-Express connectivity. “Companies will use this facility to add their own IP into an SoC,” Parris explained. “For example, they may wish to add their own accelerator, and it’s our aim to provide them with a scalable platform on which they can build.”
All 18 AMBA interfaces are connected to the cache coherent network through an I/O virtualisation block which provides unified system memory. “AMBA defines interconnect,” Parris said, “and CCN-504 builds on the AMBA interconnect. It has an integrated L3 cache, which can be configured from 8 to 16Mbyte, and a snoop filter.” The snoop filter basically keeps an eye on all caches to ensure coherency and reduce bus traffic.
If the SoC does need to access external memory, ARM has developed the DMC-520 memory controller for 72bit wide DDR3/4. This supports a maximum bandwidth of 25.6Gbyte/s per channel and features buffering to optimise reads and writes. It’s the fifth generation DMC and includes error checking and correction features.
Overall, CCN-504 supports a system bandwidth of around 1Tbit/s and operates up to the cpu clock rate. “This network scales the performance of the CCF400 significantly,” Parris noted, “with more ports and a larger cache. At the moment, it’s 128bit wide, but future devices will move up, including bandwidth,” he added.
Bailey said LSI needed a strong technology partner for interconnect. “It’s not our point of differentiation,” he said, “so the licensing approach made sense. When you think of an SoC with 16 cores, there may be a total of 30 compute elements. It’s a complex design and that’s why it needs a robust networking solution.”
– 4G World 2012: The Future of LTE [LightReadingTV YouTube, Nov 2, 2012] (on an Oct 29 – Nov 1 conference “where enterprises and operators met to discuss the state of the art of the mobile enterprise marketplace” [as per the announcement])
– 4G World 2012: The 4G Opportunity [LightReadingTV YouTube, Nov 2, 2012] (on the same Oct 29 – Nov 1 conference)
4G World 2012: Innovation: Strategy, Technology & Collaboration [LightReadingTV YouTube, Nov 2, 2012] (on the same Oct 29 – Nov 1 conference)
4G World 2012: The 1-Gigabyte Revolution [LightReadingTV YouTube, Nov 2, 2012] (on the same Oct 29 – Nov 1 conference)
– Nokia Siemens Networks and LSI Collaborate on Wireless Infrastructure Solutions [LSI press release, Feb 21, 2013]
LSI® Axxia® platform and SoC capabilities contribute to
higher-performance mobile broadband solutionsNokia Siemens Networks and LSI Corporation (NASDAQ: LSI) announced today a collaborative framework with ARM® processor based System-on-Chips (SoCs) that enable enhanced support for real-time performance, I/O optimization, robustness and heterogeneous operating environments on multi-core SoCs.
Nokia Siemens Networks is increasing investment in technology development in mobile broadband business and actively participating in Linaro Networking Group and to ARM ecosystem in general to enable better use of Open Source Linux®software and tools. This will both enhance performance of forthcoming base station BTS products as well as drive towards lower power consumption.
“LSI is very pleased to be collaborating with Nokia Siemens Networks on innovative mobile broadband solutions,” said Jim Anderson, general manager for LSI’s Networking Solutions Group. “The LSI Axxia line combines ARM processor cores with our unique Virtual Pipeline™ acceleration technology to create a platform for next-generation mobile broadband solutions and other applications. Our advanced software and emulation capabilities ensure accelerated time to market for our customers.”
– Networking Leaders Collaborate to Maximize Choice, Performance and Power Efficiency [Linaro press release, Feb 20, 2013]
Industry leaders including AppliedMicro, ARM, Enea, Freescale®, LSI, MontaVista, Nokia Siemens Networks and Texas Instruments (TI) have formed a new group focused on accelerating Linux development for ARM processors in cloud and mobile infrastructure.
Linaro, the not-for-profit engineering organization developing open source software for the ARM® architecture, today announced the formation of the Linaro Networking Group (LNG) with twelve founding member companies including … <see above> … at the Embedded Linux Conference (ELC).
With ARM-based SoCs at the heart of the transformation occurring in cloud and mobile infrastructure applications such as switching, routing, base-stations and security, Linaro’s members are collaborating on fundamental software platforms to enable rapid deployment of new services across a range of converged infrastructure platforms. Developing the base platform for diverse and complex networking applications requires a significant amount of software that addresses common challenges. LNG will deliver this as an enhanced core Linux platform for networking equipment. …
Networking infrastructure is undergoing a transformation driven by the ramp in diverse data being moved through disparate networks to and from billions of diverse devices. The industry needs to simplify the management of the network as well as create new applications that will enable cloud service providers, carriers and others to reliably provide a great user experience across expanded mobility use cases and the increasing globally-connected intelligence of devices. Enterprises need to scale their networks and their network management capabilities to cope with these demands and also enable the rapid evolution of applications for new revenue-generating business models. LNG will accelerate this transformation through its initial focus on fundamental optimizations for use across all ARM-based networking infrastructure equipment.
…
An interim steering committee for LNG has been meeting since the end of 2012 and has agreed on four initial areas of work:
Virtualization support with considerations for real-time performance, I/O optimization, robustness and heterogeneous operating environments on multi-core SoCs.
Real-time operations and the Linux kernel optimizations for the control and data plane.
Packet processing optimizations that maximize performance and minimize latency in data flows through the network.
Dealing with legacy software and mixed-endian issues prevalent in the networking space.
Linaro expects initial software deliveries from the Linaro Networking Group during the first half of 2013 with on-going monthly releases thereafter.
– LSI hopes to power mobile networks with ARM-based processors [CIO, Feb 19, 2013]
Chipmaker LSI is taking ARM-based processors to new frontiers with its upcoming AXM5500 family, which will be used in mobile base stations of all sizes.
From today’s smartphones, tablets and thin clients to tomorrow’s servers, ARM-based processors are powering a growing number of different devices, and if LSI is successful, mobile networks will be added to that list. The company’s AXM5500 family of processors will use up to 16 Cortex-A15 cores to power base stations for mobile networks.
The Cortex-A15 is ARM’s most powerful processor to date, and is used in products like the Nexus 10 tablet from Google and Samsung Electronics.
“The intention is to provide high-performance and good efficiency on a scalable platform,” said Troy Bailey, director of marketing at LSI.
LSI’s processors for wireless infrastructure have historically been based on PowerPC processors, but because of increased demand for different size base stations in so-called heterogeneous networks, it decided to add ARM-based products.
In addition to achieving a new level of efficiency, working with ARM allows LSI to build a processor family that can be used in anything from a macro cell down to a pico cell, which means lower development costs, because software can be reused, according to Bailey. Pico cells are used to provide coverage for areas such as offices and shops. Installation and management becomes easier, as well, Bailey said.
The first two products are AXM5516 and AXM 5512, which have 16 and 12 cores, respectively. They are intended for use is large base stations. LSI will in the future add processors with fewer cores that are a better fit for small cells.
The product family also uses ARM’s new CoreLink CCN-504 Cache Coherent Network interconnect, which was announced in October last year. It can prioritize time-sensitive traffic and offers up to one terabit of usable system bandwidth per second, according to ARM.
“It is a very good and scalable interconnect. One of the challenges when building high core count processors is making sure you have no bottlenecks and waste the cores,” Bailey said.
The company is also looking at ARM’s new big.LITTLE processing architecture, which in its first generation combines the powerful Cortex-A15 and the energy-efficient Cortex-A7 on one die.
“There certainly are some tasks that need a very strong single thread performance, and there are some tasks that don’t, and it doesn’t make sense to light up a big A15 if it can be done on an A7, so we think it makes sense,” Bailey said.
The company will start sampling the first processors during the third quarter. Because the products aren’t being sampled yet, LSI will have to make to with visual demos showing the performance and power savings at next week’s Mobile World Congress.
LSI will have to convince equipment vendors that using ARM in their base stations is a good move and at least one company is open to the idea. Ericsson isn’t currently using ARM-based processors in its base stations. But “as we continue to expand and develop our base station portfolio, we always evaluate what possibilities are available from the general ICT industry and we might use ARM based processors in the future,” a spokeswoman said via email.
“We definitely have some major customers that are going in the ARM direction, and we have built this product for them” Bailey said.
More media reports for general briefings:
– ARM Chips Take on New Cellular Chores, Aided by LSI [Digits blog of WSJ, Feb 19, 2013]
– ARM is already the brains of your smartphone. Now it wants to run the network too [GIGAOM, Feb 20, 2013]
Understanding LSI
[LSICorporation YouTube channel, Dec 19, 2012]
[10:43] In the case of wireless infrastructure we are engaged with all the system providers . But what’s also exciting we’re engaged deeply with the top two players. This is Ericsson as well as Nokia-Siemens who have between the two of them 50 to 60% share in the wireless infrastructure market. [11:02]
See also: Investor Relations Update [LSI Corporation, Jan 23, 2013] from which the following three slides provide the latest relevant information:
Note: SAM (Served Available Market or Segmented Addressable Market) is a term that is typically used to reference the customers that can actually be reached out of the TAM (Total Addressable or Available Market). More on that: Estimate Addressable Market, Defining your TAM, Total Addressable Market and The importance of TAM, SAM and SOM in your plan 
LSI Management Discusses Q4 2012 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Jan 23, 2013]: We began ramping our standard product Axxia multi-core communication processor at the leading base station OEM and expect continued growth as we move through this year. We have multi-generational engagements in the wireless space that we believe will enable LSI to have in excess of 50% share in data and control plane processing silicon in a few years. In addition to standard products like Axxia, we have custom silicon wins in the baseband function of base stations with multiple OEMs, further broadening LSI’s footprint in base station infrastructure. … We feel very good about our growth initiatives across networking. Axxia and our multi-core solution there continues to be adopted more and more across base station system vendors.
LSI’s CEO Presents at Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference (Transcript)
[Feb 26, 2013]: We made a major announcement last week with Nokia Siemens. Nokia Siemens and LSI are collaborating on LSI’s next-generation Axxia processor. It’s the industry’s first 16-core ARM network processor. We believe we’ll have at least a 9- to 12-month advantage relative to time to market, as well as the attributes that we have in our product. This is a pretty significant achievement, with Nokia Siemens. It adds to the other major player that we’re also shipping Axxia into. And it’s a proof-point to what we said a year ago. We said a year ago that we would have over 50% share of the data plane and control plane, basically the CPU in the base station, that we would have 50% share over the course of the next several years. So we have 2 of the top 3 companies now adopting Axxia, and we’re well on our way to achieve that share position.
We also can extend that commentary into the baseband where we are also going to ship baseband silicon into these 2 companies, which we also believe will amount to at least 40% share. These share levels are up from 10% today. So we’re very excited about what’s happening in our networking business.
LSI transforming itself again [Brian Bailey on EETimes, Feb 20, 2013] (with the illustrations replaced by equivalent images from the AXM2502 Product Brief [March 8, 2012] and AXM5500 Product Brief [Feb 19, 2013] respectively which I recommend to read for further technical details)
LSI is a company that has been through a lot of changes over the years. I can remember when they had their own fabs, did custom design for their customers, and had their own suite of design tools. In short, they were a complete vertically integrated ASIC house. They have evolved many times and become fabless, transitioned to semi-custom design and today is building standard parts for markets such as storage and wireless networking.
The other day we learned about another big change in LSI future and it all has to do with their Axxia line of communications processors. Take a look at the block diagram for the AXM2502 product. It was powered by a pair of PowerPC processors connected to custom accelerators using their Virtual Pipeline technology. This is a 28nm product.
This week, LSI introduced the Axxia 5500 product family of communication processors designed to accelerate performance and increase power efficiency for multi-radio base stations and 4G/LTE-capable wireless networks. The LSI Axxia 5500 product family features 12 or 16 ARM cores.
This switch in processing core brings about a 4X control plane performance improvement and 2,5X data plane improvement and reduced power – something that is becoming important for all applications from battery powered handhelds to datacenters.
This chip not only makes advances for LSI, but ARM also. The two companies partnered to create this 16 core solution utilizing ARMs new CoreLink CCN-504 interconnect. CoreLink CCN-504 can deliver up to one Terabit of system bandwidth per second.
LSI also provides much of the software necessary to power this chip including high-performance layer two through four software packages that provide a complete wireless transport solution for networking OEMs.
More 3d party reports for further technical briefings:
– LSI and 6WIND team up for high performance networking [SemiAccurate, Oct 16, 2012]
– How does LSI envision the next generation of ARM networking SoCs? [SemiAccurate, Nov 28, 2012]
– LSI launches a 16-core ARM A15 cell phone chip [SemiAccurate, Feb 19, 2013]
…
The HetNet problem as LSI sees it
Until recently, you needed very different devices from top to bottom, the hardware on a pico basestation was nothing like that of the vastly larger long distance stations. This mandates some very different software stacks, management tools, and all sorts of other things that bring problems to the poor network trolls running the plumbing 24/7. Heterogeneity is not a good thing here, but there really wasn’t a choice, no hardware was suited for all of the tasks at hand. See what LSI is aiming for now?
Since the Axxia 5500 line can scale from 4 to 32 cores, it can meet all of the demands of basestations large and small. If the pico basestation needs a digitial front end and DSP setup that the big ones don’t, no problem, slap them on. If there are things that the little ones don’t need, pull them out and save die area. LSI hopes to be able to service all of a carrier’s needs from large to small with a single hardware family and the attendant software stack. Carriers like this, it saves them time, money, and headaches, speeds deployment, and makes life easier by simplifying everything. And that is exactly what LSI is aiming for with the Axxia 5500 family.
Corresponding LSI press releases with more information:
– LSI Announces Availability of Family of Network Accelerator Cards for Enterprise, Data Centers and Service Providers [July 20, 2011] “Complete platform built on industry-leading silicon with software protocols to provide high performance and deterministic features for networking OEMs”
– LSI Begins Shipping 28nm Custom Silicon for Datacenter and Mobile Network Applications [Nov 16, 2011] “Custom silicon enables networking and storage OEMs to build highly differentiated silicon solutions; demonstrates LSI leadership”
– LSI Expands Strategic Relationship with ARM to Offer Energy-Efficient Multicore Processors for Networking Applications [Jan 23, 2012] “Enhances industry’s most powerful networking silicon portfolio … LSI will gain access to:
- The broad family of ARM processors, including the ARM Cortex-A15 processor with virtualization support and future ARM processor
- ARM on-chip interconnect technology, including CoreLink™ cache coherent interconnect system IP, for use in multicore applications”
– LSI Introduces Highly Integrated Axxia Communication Processor to Accelerate Mobile Broadband [Feb 21, 2012] “AXM2500 reduces power consumption and physical space requirements; helps service providers seamlessly deploy heterogeneous networks and contend with data growth”
– LSI Expands Axxia Platform to Deliver Power-Efficient Mobile Networks [Feb 23, 2012] “Addition of ARM’s latest multicore technology will provide scalability, performance and low power consumption to meet growing demand for mobile broadband”
– LSI Expands Networking Ecosystem to Accelerate Implementation of 4G Networks [Feb 24, 2012] “Partner solutions accelerate time to market and reduce software investment for wireless manufacturers”
– LSI Collaborates with Vineyard Networks to Accelerate Mobile and Datacenter Networks [May 7, 2012] “Vineyard joins LSI networking ecosystem; combined solution delivers real-time application recognition to improve user experience”
– LSI and Microsemi Collaborate to Reduce Costs and Increase Performance of Mobile Networks [Sept 19, 2012] “Integration of Microsemi timing protocol into LSI® Axxia®communication processors provides networking equipment manufacturers with increased interoperability, reduced customer investment and faster time-to-market”
– LSI and 6WIND Team Up to Accelerate Mobile Infrastructure and Datacenter Network Performance [Oct 16, 2012] “6WINDGate packet processing software for LSI® Axxia®platform allows network OEMs to benefit from performance-optimized software that reduces time-to-market and lowers development costs”
– LSI Summit Convenes Technology Leaders to Unlock Opportunities in the New Innovation Era of Devices, Datacenters and Mobile Networks [Nov 13, 2012] “5th annual ‘Accelerating Innovation Summit’ attracts storage and networking experts to collaborate on solving the challenges of the data deluge”
– LSI Introduces Axxia® 5500 Communication Processors with ARM Technology for High-Performance, Power-Efficient Networks [Feb 19, 2013] “LSI scalable architecture with ARM multicore processors and interconnect to improve multi-radio base station and 4G/LTE-capable wireless network performance”
Future Coherent Interconnect Technology for Networking Applications [ARM’s Smart Connected Devices blog, Dec 11, 2012]
Coherent interconnects will be at the core of next-generation network systems and system-on-chip (SoC) devices. To meet the rapidly growing processing requirements of wireless infrastructure systems and servers, network equipment manufacturers need highly integrated SoCs with a heterogeneous mix of CPU cores. These cores need to handle a mix of general-purpose processing, packet processing and digital signal processing (DSP) functions. The interconnect at the center of these solutions must maintain cache coherency between cores and provide a low-latency path between the cores, caches, external memory and networking I/O.
We are seeing dramatic growth in the data bandwidth in both mobile and fixed line networks. Cloud computing and video services are key applications driving this growth. 4G/LTE networks are transforming the wireless network experience for high-volume data users. Larger data centers with many virtualized servers allow large content providers such as Facebook, Google and Amazon to support many millions of users. To meet these demands, carriers are making significant investments in enhanced 4G networks and infrastructure required to support the huge growth in data traffic.
The latest silicon technology allows the integration of many cores onto a single SoC, dramatically reducing the number of components in a system. The processor cores can be closely coupled to hardware acceleration engines, external memory interfaces and high-speed networking I/O. The level of integration presents significant challenges to developers, who must ensure the use of shared resources does not reduce system performance. The key to this integration is the interconnect between the different cores and the other functional blocks.
Standard RISC cores, licensed from vendors such as ARM, have allowed system OEMs to quickly develop new solutions using third-party tools for software development. The introduction of licensed IP for a low-latency coherent interconnect will allow OEMs to develop more easily new solutions integrating multiple general purpose CPU and other cores. By working with well-established IP and SoC vendors such as ARM and LSI, system developers will have access to next-generation networking SoCs with a mix of CPU cores, hardware accelerators and, if required, their own hardware blocks.
The “Future Coherent Interconnect Technology for Networking Applications,” by Heavy Reading for LSI and ARM, explores the benefits of using a low-latency, coherent interconnect at the core of a next-generation networking SoC and reviews the market demand for next-generation network SoCs with multiple CPU cores and hardware accelerators. It details the technical challenges and one solution that is available to system developers for a coherent interconnect with integrated cache and support for DDR3 and DDR4 memories. The paper also describes a next-generation networking SoC architecture that is built around a coherent interconnect and available to OEMs as a standard product or custom solution.
Guest Partner Blogger:
Michael Merluzzi is a Sr. Marketing Manager in the Networking Solutions Group at LSI Corporation. He has product marketing responsibilities for integrated platform solutions and application-enabling software for LSI’s Axxia® family of multicore communications processors. Previously, he has held a variety of roles in technical marketing, applications engineering and software development.
Michael holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University and master’s degrees in Business Administration and Computer Engineering from Lehigh University.
Next-Generation Multicore ARM Architectures for Intelligent Networks:
Next-generation multicore SoC architectures for tomorrow’s communications networks [by David Sonnier, LSI Corporation on Embedded Computing Design, Dec 11, 2012]
IT managers are under increasing pressure to boost network capacity and performance to cope with the data deluge. Networking systems are under a similar form of stress with their performance degrading as new capabilities are added in software. The solution to both needs is next-generation System-on-Chip (SoC) communications processors that combine multiple cores with multiple hardware acceleration engines.
The data deluge, with its massive growth in both mobile and enterprise network traffic, is driving substantial changes in the architectures of base stations, routers, gateways, and other networking systems. To maintain high performance as traffic volume and velocity continue to grow, next-generation communications processors combine multicore processors with specialized hardware acceleration engines in SoC ICs.
The following discussion examines the role of the SoC in today’s network infrastructures, as well as how the SoC will evolve in coming years. Before doing so, it is instructive to consider some of the trends driving this need.
Networks under increasing stress
In mobile networks, per-user access bandwidth is increasing by more than an order of magnitude from 200-300 Mbps in 3G networks to 3-5 Gbps in 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks. Advanced LTE technology will double bandwidth again to 5-10 Gbps. Higher-speed access networks will need more and smaller cells to deliver these data rates reliably to a growing number of mobile devices.
In response to these and other trends, mobile base station features are changing significantly. Multiple radios are being used in cloud[
]-like distributed antenna systems. Network topologies are flattening. Operators are offering advanced Quality of Service (QoS) and location-based services and moving to application-aware billing. The increased volume of traffic will begin to place considerable stress on both the access and backhaul portions of the network.
Traffic is similarly exploding within data center networks. Organizations are pursuing limitless-scale computing workloads on virtual machines, which is breaking many of the traditional networking protocols and procedures. The network itself is also becoming virtual and shifting to a Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) paradigm, which is driving organizations to a more flexible Software-Defined Networking (SDN) architecture.
These trends will transform the data center into a private cloud with a service-oriented network. This private cloud will need to interact more seamlessly and securely with public cloud offerings in hybrid arrangements. The result will be the need for greater intelligence, scalability, and flexibility throughout the network.
Moore’s Law not keeping pace
Once upon a time, Moore’s Law – the doubling of processor performance every 18 months or so – was sufficient to keep pace with computing and networking requirements. Hardware and software advanced in lockstep in both computers and networking equipment. As software added more features with greater sophistication, advances in processors maintained satisfactory levels of performance. But then along came the data deluge.
In mobile networks, for example, traffic volume is growing by some 78 percent per year, owing mostly to the increase in video traffic. This is already causing considerable congestion, and the problem will only get worse when an estimated 50 billion mobile devices are in use by 2016 and the total volume of traffic grows by a factor of 50 in the coming decade.
In data centers, data volume and velocity are also growing exponentially. According to IDC, digital data creation is rising 60 percent per year. The research firm’s Digital Universe Study predicts that annual data creation will grow 44-fold between 2009 and 2020 to 35 zettabytes (35 trillion gigabytes). All of this data must be moved, stored, and analyzed, making Big Data a big problem for most organizations today.
With the data deluge demanding more from network infrastructures, vendors have applied a Band-Aid to the problem by adding new software-based features and functions in networking equipment. Software has now grown so complex that hardware has fallen behind. One way for hardware to catch up is to use processors with multiple cores. If one general-purpose processor is not enough, try two, four, 16, or more.
Another way to improve hardware performance is to combine something new – multiple cores – with something old – Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) technology. With RISC, less is more based on the uniform register file load/store architecture and simple addressing modes. ARM, for example, has made some enhancements to the basic RISC architecture to achieve a better balance of high performance, small code size, low power consumption, and small silicon area, with the last two factors being important to increasing the core count.
Hardware acceleration necessary, but …
General-purpose processors, regardless of the number of cores, are simply too slow for functions that must operate deep inside every packet, such as packet classification, cryptographic security, and traffic management, which is needed for intelligent QoS. Because these functions must often be performed in serial fashion, there is limited opportunity to process them simultaneously in multiple cores. For these reasons, such functions have long been performed in hardware, and it is increasingly common to have these hardware accelerators integrated with multicore processors in specialized SoC communications processors.
The number of function-specific acceleration engines available also continues to grow, and more engines (along with more cores) can now be placed on a single SoC. Examples of acceleration engines include packet classification, deep packet inspection, encryption/decryption, digital signal processing, transcoding, and traffic management. It is even possible now to integrate a system vendor’s unique intellectual property into a custom acceleration engine within an SoC. Taken together, these advances make it possible to replace multiple SoCs with a single SoC in many networking systems (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: SoC communications processors combine multiple general-purpose processor cores with multiple task-specific acceleration engines to deliver higher performance with a lower component count and lower power consumption.
In addition to delivering higher throughput, SoCs reduce the cost of equipment, resulting in a significant price/performance improvement. Furthermore, the ability to tightly couple multiple acceleration engines makes it easier to satisfy end-to-end QoS and service-level agreement requirements. The SoC also offers a distinct advantage when it comes to power consumption, which is an increasingly important consideration in network infrastructures, by providing the ability to replace multiple discrete components in a single energy-efficient IC.
The powerful capabilities of today’s SoCs make it possible to offload packet processing entirely to system line cards such as a router or switch. In distributed architectures like the IP Multimedia System and SDN, the offload can similarly be distributed among multiple systems, including servers.
Although hardware acceleration is necessary, the way it is implemented in some SoCs today may no longer be sufficient in applications requiring deterministic performance. The problem is caused by the workflow within the SoC itself when packets must pass through several hardware accelerators, which is increasingly the case for systems tasked with inspecting, transforming, securing, and otherwise manipulating traffic.
If traffic must be handled by a general-purpose processor each time it passes through a different acceleration engine, latency can increase dramatically, and deterministic performance cannot be guaranteed under all circumstances. This problem will get worse as data rates increase in Ethernet networks from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps, and in mobile networks from 300 Mbps in 3G networks to 5 Gbps in 4G networks.
Next-generation multicore SoCs
LSI addresses the data path problem in its Axxia SoCs with Virtual Pipeline technology. The Virtual Pipeline creates a message-passing control path that enables system designers to dynamically specify different packet-processing flows that require different combinations of multiple acceleration engines. Each traffic flow is then processed directly through any engine in any desired sequence without intervention from a general-purpose processor (see Figure 2). This design natively supports connecting different heterogeneous cores together, enabling more flexibility and better power optimization.
Figure 2: To maximize performance, next-generation SoC communications processors process packets directly and sequentially in multiple acceleration engines without intermediate intervention from the CPU cores.
In addition to faster, more efficient packet processing, next-generation SoCs also include more general-purpose processor cores (to 32, 64, and beyond), highly scalable and lower-latency interconnects, nonblocking switching, and a wider choice of standard interfaces (Serial RapidIO, PCI Express, USB, I2C, and SATA) and higher-speed Ethernet interfaces (1G, 2.5G, 10G, and 40G+). To easily integrate these increasingly sophisticated capabilities into a system’s design, software development kits are enhanced with tools that simplify development, testing, debugging, and optimization tasks.
Next-generation SoC ICs accelerate time to market for new products while lowering both manufacturing costs and power consumption. With deterministic performance for data rates in excess of 40 Gbps, embedded hardware is once again poised to accommodate any additional capabilities required by the data deluge for another three to four years.
David Sonnier is a technical fellow in system architecture for the Networking Solutions Group of LSI Corporation.
LSI Corporation david.sonnier@lsi.com www.lsi.com
See how innovative is the Axxia SoC networking platform for mobile broadband speed [LSI China, Oct 15, 2012] as translated from Chinese by Google (except the introductory summary which manual corrections as well) because there is no English equivalent
What is Axxia? A communication processor? Not only that! It represents a unique innovation network SoC solutions platform, flexible and energy efficient and scalable architecture! It contains the complete network chip and software combination:
Communication processor, using state-of-the-art multi-core technology which can achieve fast path acceleration with deterministic performance and highly programmable;
Highest density, lowest cost and fully programmable media and baseband processor;
The TDM (time-division multiplex) transport of multiservice processor, high-density, low-power and fully trust through the packet network;
Customizazion based on Axxia processors, flexible customer management, industry-leading delivery times.
The Axxia Network SoC solutions for mobile and enterprise networks determine performance, customized solutions to achieve a high degree of differentiation.
Flexible and highly scalable platform
<from here on raw Google translation>
“With the mass deployment of EVS, SAE and LTE-Advanced, the new architecture of the system on the network bandwidth requirements will far exceed the processing capacity of the current infrastructure, which requires the SoC architecture with excellent expansion capability, in order to effectively control costs , while responding to the ever-rising demand for bandwidth. “LSI corporate network components, marketing director Tareq Bustami has pointed out.
Axxia the use of energy-efficient central processing unit (CPU) platform and instruction set architecture (ISA) multicore architecture-independent, allowing the general-purpose processor with flexible, determined by the Virtual Pipeline high-speed path integration, for according to the specific needs of the OEM manufacturers extend and customize Axxia platform to choose their own silicon design, such as ASIC, CSSP or ASSPs. Unique business model is the LSI customers widely hailed (as shown in Figure 1).
Figure 1. The LSI Axxia network platform has an original mixed approach of the general and specific types of processing, and has the ability to integrate custom IP.
This flexible business model is built on the LSI IP accumulation basis. Customers comply with the standards provided by LSI pre-verified IP cores to reduce costs and accelerate time-to-market.
CoreWare IP in LSI the proven complex IP functionality, and to achieve specific LSI design integrity, ease of use, reusability, supportability, quality, range of standard deliverables and supporting infrastructure. , CoreWare IP address program leading storage industry standard interfaces and components are synergistic, ensure compliance, and customer resources to focus on product differentiation and competitive advantage.
Since 1990 LSI IP solutions already contains a high-level, pre-packaged chip components and complete delivery, the LSI leading design tools and methods to achieve integration. LSI IP support for system-level design considerations for end-use applications, including simulation and signal integrity requirements.
LSI also provides a flexible IP subscription model, allowing customers to choose a wide range of solutions from LSI, from the the SerDes or I / O unit to complete the I / O controller, processor subsystem processor core to complete. Specifically including but not limited to: 1. (Key storage and network interface) from the current and next generation serial standards support, such as XFI (10G), Fibre Channel (8.5G), SAS (6G), PCI Express (5G) as well as many other interfaces; 2. the latest parallel storage interface supports DDR3 SDRAM, QDR, DDR II + SRAM and RLDRAM; memory chip-to-chip interface, such as SGMII and SPI4; 3. supports the industry’s most popular integrated processor products, such as PowerPC, ARM, MIPS and ZSP.
Collaboration with ARM, significantly improve mobile network performance / power ratio
Particularly worth mentioning is the integration, in addition to continue to develop Axxia communication processors, high-performance multi-core PowerPC-based ASSP products, LSI also recently a new high-performance multi-core ARM Cortex A-15 processor and LSI hardware accelerators certainty The Axxia processor program series ASSPs ideal for mobile access, backhaul and gateway. The series offers a variety of pin-compatible configuration, suitable for a variety of network applications, NodeB and eNodeB 3G/4G mobile access to the system, the mobile broadband radio network controller (RNC) applications as well as enterprise gateway. The Axxia Series provides a comprehensive software development environment, evaluation board, as well as the industry’s leading supplier, launched a series of hardware / software solutions.
ARM CPU and LSI hardware accelerators with the the Virtual Pipeline patented technology to achieve the best performance and flexibility. This partnership to provide customers with a proven scalable, multi-function software platform to support the extended multi-generation wireless infrastructure. LSI has been a long history of cooperation with ARM kernel currently has shipped over one billion ARM core integrated into LSI flagship the Axxia platform is a natural choice. The platform enables wireless manufacturers to develop a solution that contains all base station processing functions.
Add the ARM energy saving core the Axxia platform can base stations and wireless infrastructure to provide energy-efficient, low-power multi-core processors; provide scalable performance to meet smart phones, tablet PCs and cloud services bring massive data growth needs; embedded intelligence, can be used to determine flow, identification applications, provide appropriate traffic and at the right time in order to achieve real-time services such as mobile video. Through the the ARM Community and LSI network ecosystem, customers also have access to a wealth of third-party tools and support.
The innovative Virtual Pipeline patented technology to determine performance
Any routing combination of LSI Virtual Pipeline (Virtual Pipeline) patented technology developed for each packet classification decisions, each data packet or communications media stream prior to leaving the ACP can after engine CPU core. This flexibility is very powerful and convenient, and is conducive to the design of traffic flowing through the device.
Using patented technology hardware scheduler function with any-to-any data packet streaming combined, and thus needed to route traffic on-chip, able to achieve in the the acceleration engine multicore Commonwealth SoC subsystem components between smooth Communication chip. The flow from the input port is routed directly to the hardware acceleration engine, and then routed to the next acceleration engine, transmission path depends entirely on the processing requirements of specific traffic, regardless of whether or not to use the CPU core. Can achieve up to 20Gbps or more deterministic data throughput, and to achieve deterministic transmission and L2 performance in a longer transition period may be well suited for multi-protocol processing applications.
Figure 2. Virtual Pipeline message transmission of the highly innovative patented technologies.
For example, through the Virtual Pipeline patented technology can be first Ethernet interface receives traffic sent to the decryption engine to decrypt the encrypted traffic, and then routed directly to the content inspection engine contain viruses / spam or other malicious content traffic filtering. If the flow is considered safe, can be directly transmitted to the rear panel ports, without going through the CPU core. In addition, we also needed to flow from the input port or accelerate the engine is routed to the CPU core for further processing.
Wireless eco-system platform to reduce costs, accelerate time to market
Mark Hung, research director at Gartner, said: “built under the premise of controlling costs to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband network, which is a big challenge. Operators will benefit from a higher degree of integration of the mobile infrastructure system IC solve program, because they cost the transition to 4G networks. “
As mentioned earlier, Axxia platform provide highly differentiated multi-core chip and software architecture can achieve scalability and identify performance benefits to customers include: capital expenditures can be reduced by 50%; while the power consumption improvements reduce power consumption by 50% reduction of operating costs; simplified software architecture cocoa to help customers reduce software development work; the active industrial environment can be enhanced debugging capabilities, thus speeding up the listing process; while a high level of system integration can reduce the cost of materials (such as memory and switch) ; uncertainty platform can also shorten the delay, to improve the user experience, and so on.
Figure 3: the Axxia wireless platform ecosystem including IP cores, OS platform and developer tools for ISVs, ODMs, CMs and other partners, providing a strong industrial environment of support.
As service providers compete to deploy 4G wireless infrastructure, LSI is bound growth expected customer demand for reliable integration solutions, was founded a few years ago a the Axxia wireless ecological system, combined with IP cores, operating systems and tools various partners, developers, independent software developers (ISVs), ODM, CM, to the advantage of price, performance, and flexible power range of products both Axxia series to help wireless equipment manufacturers to accelerate time to market, reduce software investment.
LSI and its ecosystem partners recently announced the plans of the wireless platform, pre-integrated solutions to provide optimal performance for their own the Axxia wireless platform to provide stronger support industrial environment. LSI ecosystem partners are encouraged to focus on the benefits of development features, and performance differentiation, rather than using a dedicated interface.
This wireless ecosystem platform provides a proven, scalable, multi-function software platform to support multiple generations of Axxia product line; consistent software architecture to simplify the customer transplantation of the the Axxia products enable customers to choose the best. Framework API LSI architecture oversight functions allow open access to different ecosystem partners.Ecosystem partners committed LSI architecture to optimize performance and support the strategic objectives of the wireless platform.
For example, LSI is in cooperation with the main partners in the the Axxia wireless industry environment Radisys Trillium 3G and LTE wireless protocol software specifically for the LSI Axxia platform integration and optimization. Axxia platform so that you can take advantage of a unique, scalable capacity and performance, simple and convenient to deploy the Radisys wireless software.
Such wireless ecosystem platform plans to help the wireless OEM manufacturers and their suppliers ecosystem response to earnings challenges, accelerate time to market, lower total cost of ownership.Reduce software investment to achieve higher performance of OTB. At the same time minimizing the cost of the non-differentiated products. Reduce technical barriers, you can choose more cost effective, lower power consumption optimal product!
(This article is LSI Corporation feed)
Phablet competition in India: $258 Micromax-MediaTek-2013 against $360 Samsung-Broadcom-2012
Allwinner in mainland China moved first to quad-core Cortex-A7 with the A31 SoC introduced with the launch of the first two tablet products, Onda V972 and V812, on December 5, 2012 (and delivered from December 24, 2012 on in mainland China). That prompted a direction only reaction that Qualcomm quad-core Cortex-A7 SoCs with Adreno 305 and 1080p coming for the high-volume global market and China [Dec 9, 2012]), with sampling just planned for Q2’13 and only now publishing a completely redesigned 2013 roadmap according to Qualcomm moving ahead of Allwinner et al. in CPU and GPU while trying to catch up with Allwinner in Ultra HD [Jan 12 – Feb 20, 2013]. The #2 SoC vendor MediaTek from Taiwan had already plans to move to Cortex-A7 so was able to react much more quickly with MediaTek MT6589 quad-core Cortex-A7 SoC with HSPA+ and TD-SCDMA is available for Android smartphones and tablets of Q1 delivery [Dec 12, 2012]. Such a delivery first happened with Micromax A116 in India (from February 14, 2013 on) which targeted the delivery of Samsung Galaxy Grand (from January 21, 2013 on) based on a very much ‘2012 vintage’ SoC from Broadcom still using a dual core Cortex-A9 driven CPU.
So here we have an interesting possibility of comparing a ‘2013 vintage’ (quad-core Cortex-A7 at 28nm etc.) phablet solution with a ‘2012 vintage’ (dual core Cortex-A9 at 40nm LP etc.) one. In addition from a vendor (MediaTek) trying to agressively conquer the global market after the Greater China one by going against the global #1 heavyweight Samsung. Such an analysis would, no doubt, reveal quite interesting facts not only about the current state of the market but about the future market as well.
First here is an overall comparison video from India:
Micromax Canvas HD A116 VS Samsung Galaxy Grand – Gaming, Benchmarks, Camera, Performance, Display [intellectdigest YouTube channel, Feb 16, 2013]
Next there is a detailed specification comparison is in the table somewhat below.
Before that, however, note that to do such a comparison one needs to invest more than one day of time which shows quite well that in the consumer computing space customers will hardly be able to recognize the really deciding differentiators(in the same way as this happens with consumer products in general). I am particularly dismayed by the fact that even from such a table one will hardly recognize the most important differentiator that from power consumption point of view the Galaxy Grand is ways better that the Micromax A116 (440 hours of standby time vs. 174 hours, and 10 hours 10 minutes of talk time vs. 5 hours).
Then the display quality difference discussed first in the above video is far less than one would conclude from the below table (TFT LCD at 800×480 resolution on Grand and IPS at 1280×720 on Micromax A116) as evidenced by the excerpted video image included below (taken az [1:15] with A116 on the left and Grand on the right, for both the brightness set to maximum for the comparison). One of the reasons for that is the mDNIe (mobile Digital Natural Image engine) technology from Samsung going back to 2003 with TVs. In fact MediaTek just now came up with a kind of similar technology of its own (see in the end of Section 1) called MiraVision. Immediately after that (in the whole Section 2) I included all available material about both the mDNIe and its “parent from TVs”, DNIe in order to make possible to understand the maturity of Samsung solution vs. the MediaTek one. And there are definitely other “tricks” (additional layers etc.) which are also essential for making the Grand screen a true masterpice of display engineering.
Click on the image below or this link in order to go to a clickable version of the table!
Click on the image above or this link in order to go to a clickable version of the table!
Finally, in addition to the already mentioned first two sections of the detailed analysis there is a Section 3 in the end devoted to the Broadcom SoC technology used in the Samsung Galaxy Grand
More information for this introductory part:
– Micromax Canvas HD A116 [Micromax microsite, Feb 13, 2013]
– MediaTek High Performance Quad Core Solution Empowers Micromax A116 Canvas HD [MediaTek press release, Jan 22, 2013]
– Micromax Canvas HD demo Video [micromaxtube YouTube channel, Feb 19, 2013]
– Micromax launches Canvas HD to strengthen phablet leadership [Micromax press release, Jan 21, 2013]
… it is the ideal phone for the young generation who is always on the lookout for better, faster and savvier smart phones on the go!
Commenting on the launch and association with MediaTek, Mr. Deepak Mehrotra, Chief Executive Officer, Micromax said, “At Micromax, we constantly strive to innovate and develop great technological experiences for our consumers. Today’s launch marks our association with MediaTek to bring forth our first quad core phone in this segment, offering consumers a great user experience with latest features and added functionality.” He further added, “We are excited with the success of Canvas 2, which has clearly established Micromax as number one player in the new 5” phablet category in India. We are looking forward to similar success with the new phone being unveiled today.”
…
Speaking at the occasion, Dr. Finbarr Moynihan, General Manager – Business Development at MediaTek, said, “In less than 2 years of launching our first smartphone chipset, MediaTek’s shipments in this category have grown more than ten times, with 110 million units in 2012. As the world’s first commercialized quad-core Cortex-A7 SoC, the MT6589 is an innovative solution that accelerates product development, simplifies differentiation, and offers the best possible experience that mid to high-end smart device owners desire. Micromax shares our core philosophy of pushing the bar on innovation and bringing it within the reach of the masses. We are delighted that India’s leading youth mobile brand has chosen MediaTek to power its top-end mobile smartphones.”
…
About Micromax [the 12th largest handset manufacturer in the world]:
Micromax started as an IT software company in the year 2000 working on embedded platforms. In 2008, it entered mobile handset business and by 2010 it became one of the largest Indian domestic mobile handsets company by offering unique affordable innovations. … The brand’s product portfolio embraces more than 60 models today, ranging from feature rich, dual – SIM phones, 3G Android smartphones, tablets, LED televisions and data cards. The company has many firsts to its credit when it comes to the mobile handset market including the 30-day battery backup, dual SIM phones, QWERTY keypads, dual reception mode handsets, universal remote control mobile phones etc. Micromax has presence in more than 500 districts through 100,000 retail outlets in India. The company has global business presence spread across Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri-Lanka, Maldives, UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Afghanistan and Brazil.
– Samsung Galaxy Grand (i9082) full review hands on video [mobiscrub YouTube channel, Feb 4, 2013]
[2:06] The display of the Grand is a 5 inch Super Clear LCD with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. When compared to the Super AMOLED screen in the Galaxy Note II or the S III, the screen does look less saturated, however, color rendition is great & looks very natural. Wide viewing angles & good outdoor visibility lets you watch movies & read content easily. [2:42]
The Galaxy Grand camera is an 8 MP sensor with autofocus & LED Flash. The camera also features BIS (Backside Illumination Sensor) which basically takes great shots even in low light condition. The shutter speed of the Galaxy Grand camera is quite nice as well but not as fast as the Note II or the S III.
Much of the smart features in the Galaxy Grand resemble to those found in the S III & Note II such as: Multi window, Smart Rotation, Smart Stay, Smart Alert, Direct call & pop up play. Obviously there is no S Pen included with the Galaxy Grand, that differentiates from the smartphone beast, the Note II.
– Samsung GALAXY Grand [Samsung Mobile Press announcement, Dec 18, 2012]
– Samsung Unveiled GALAXY Grand [Samsung Tomorrow Global, Dec 18, 2012]
– Galaxy Grand GT-i9082 [Samsung India microsite, Jan 22, 2013]
– Samsung Galaxy Grand Redefines Smartphone Experience for All [Samsung India press release, Jan 22, 2013]
Even though it supports a massive 5.0″ screen with WVGA TFT display powered with mDNIe [mobile Digital Natural Image engine]technology, the device is incredibly slim and comes with an ergonomic design which makes is comfortable to hold. The vivid display provides an expansive viewing experience rendering messaging, multimedia and Web content in brilliant color and clarity.
Samsung GT-i9082 Galaxy Grand [Duos]
– Micromax Canvas HD A116 Detailed In Depth Video Review And Comparison With Galaxy Grand [Intellect Digest, Feb 17, 2013]
– List of Top 5 Phablets under Rs 20k – Feb 2013 [My PhoneFactor.in, Feb 20, 2013]
– Micromax A116 Canvas HD performance review vs. other quad-core phones [Thinkdigit, Feb 15, 2013]
Section 1 MT6589
Quad-Core Cortex-A7 1GHz+CPU Smartphone Platform [MediaTek product page, Dec 27, 2012]
Overview
The world’s first commercialized quad-core SoC available for mid to high end smartphone and tablets market
The Coolest quad core solution- MT6589 is the world’s first commercialized quad-core SoC (AP+BB) available for mid to high end smartphone and tablets market, the MT6589 integrates a power-efficient Cortex™-A7 CPU subsystem from ARM, PowerVR™ Series5XT GPU from Imagination Technologies, and MediaTek’s advanced multi-mode UMTS Rel. 8/HSPA+/TD-SCDMA modem. The MT6589 is delivered in advanced 28nm process technology, creating a universal platform that delivers powerful performance at a very competitive price.
Features
Innovative, Advanced Dual-SIM solution
Dual-SIM and Dual-Active functionality frees users to seamlessly make and receive calls on two SIM cards at the same time.
High-end Multimedia Capabilities
13MP camera with integrated ISP, 1080p playback and recording at 30fps, and enhanced image processing for DTV-grade image quality
Full HD (1920×1080) [1080p] LCD support for razor sharp visuals
Best-in-class MediaTek Technology
Integrated leading 4-in-1 connectivity combo, providing 802.11n Wi-Fi, BT4.0, GPS and FM radio
MT6589 – The Coolest Quad-Core SoC Platform – Thermal Benchmark [mediateklab YouTube channel, Dec 28, 2012]
See also:
– MediaTek Strengthens Global Position with World’s First Quad-Core Cortex-A7 System on a Chip – MT6589 [MediaTek press release, Dec 11, 2012]
MediaTek Inc., a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions, announced the launch of the MT6589, the world’s first commercialized quad-core System on a Chip (SoC), available for mid to high-end Android smartphones and tablets worldwide. The new quad-core SoC integrates MediaTek’s advanced multi-mode UMTS Rel. 8/HSPA+/TD-SCDMA modem, a power-efficient quad-core Cortex™-A7 CPU subsystem from ARM, PowerVR™ Series5XT GPU from Imagination Technologies, and is delivered in 28nm process technology. As a leader in Dual-SIM technology, the MT6589 is also the world’s first HSPA+ smartphone platform supporting Dual-SIM, Dual-Active functionality to address increasing multi-SIM demand around the world. The integration of these compelling features makes the MT6589 a universal platform that delivers premium multimedia capabilities with extremely low power consumption for an outstanding user experience. It also enables handset makers to reduce time to market, simplify product development and manage product differentiation in a more cost effective way, for any market worldwide.
…
The MT6589 also supports Miracast™ technology for multi-screen content sharing and pre-integrates MediaTek’s leading 4-in-1 connectivity combo, which supports 802.11n Wi-Fi, BT4.0, GPS and FM.
…
The MediaTek MT6589 is currently being incorporated into smart devices by MediaTek’s leading global customers, and the first models based on this new chipset are expected to ship commercially in Q1 2013.
– Lenovo S3000 uses MediaTek quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 [Charbax YouTube channel, Feb 26, 2013]
– MediaTek Powers Lenovo’s Premium Multimedia IdeaTab S6000 Tablet [MediaTek press release, Feb 25, 2013]
This year, at Mobile World Congress, MediaTek’s quad core SoC will be powering three new Android tablets launched by Lenovo, led by the Lenovo IdeaTab S6000. Built on the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, the S6000 is a sleek (8.6mm) and light (560g), 10” tablet which leverages quad-core processing to deliver performance, connectivity, and clarity.
…
Jeffrey Ju, GM of Smartphone Business Unit of MediaTek. “Our aim is to democratize the smartphone market by enabling the smart ecosystem to make high performance products at affordable prices for the mainstream market. This in turn will be the catalyst for the smart age as customers will demand greater device integration to share and view their entertainment and information seamlessly across multiple screens – requiring a sophisticated smart ecosystem that only MediaTek’s SoC total solutions can drive.”
– How MediaTek helps lower mobile device power consumption? [mediateklab YouTube channel, Feb 24, 2013]
– MiraVision makes Full-HD support for mobile devices a reality to everyone [MediaTek press release, Feb 25, 2013]
MediaTek Inc., a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions announced today the availability of “MiraVision,” the world’s most comprehensive suite of display picture quality technology, for its smartphone and tablet platforms.
The joint hardware and software suite of display picture quality technology – MiraVision – aims to strengthen Mediatek’s leading position in the smart age, where consumers can expect the same, high quality of the visual experience across various display resolutions. Leveraging MediaTek’s leading display picture quality technology developed in digital TV (DTV), MiraVision is designed to deliver seamless full high-definition display picture quality on mobile devices. It empowers handset and tablets makers to provide the best visual quality on the mobile platform with reduced time to market, simplified product development and differentiation for consumers everywhere.
MiraVision is equipped with specific features that enable users to enjoy DTV-grade display picture quality on their mobile devices. With MiraVision, contents will be displayed more vivid and saturated with more details, providing a far richer and more colorful viewing experience previously only available on a high-end DTV. Furthermore, specifically tailored for mobile devices, the all-important power efficiency has been addressed and boosted through the Ambient-Light Adaptive Luma (AAL) technology, which intelligently adjusts the panel backlight in response to the ambient light intensity and the displayed contents to simultaneously optimize battery life and viewing experience. The combination of enhanced sharpness, richer color and adaptive Luma technology means true seamless quality across multiple devices is closer than ever before.
“The future is more than just TVs or smartphones alone,” commented Jeffrey Ju, GM of Smartphone Business Unit of MediaTek, “our focus is on innovative solutions that enhance the chip, driving speed to market at premium performance up for our customers while ensuring the seamless cross-screen experience across the array of devices through which users are consuming entertainment and information. We are proud to be the one who can truly integrate technologies of DTV and mobile phones/tablets in the smart age, making the premium cross-screen experience real to everyone in every market.”
This background technology from MediaTek is also available to the MT6589 as evidenced by [2:00 – 3:00] time fragment of this recorded video (at [0:56] it is explicitly said: “Miravision engine which has been included in the new MT6589 quad-core SoC”):
MiraVision: world’s leading digital TV-grade picture-quality engine for mobile devices [mediateklab YouTube channel, Feb 24, 2013]
Section 2
Samsung mDNIe [mobile Digital Natural Image engine]
Into the New Wave – the Samsung Wave S8500 [samsungwave YouTube channel, Feb 14, 2010]
Mobile Digital Natural Image Engine – mDNIe [Read a tech, June 12, 2010]
Samsung Wave display features Samsung’s mDNIe – mobile Digital Natural Image engine technology, borrowed from Samsung’s latest LCD TV and LED TV products, says the company. The mDNIe technology is said to offer better viewing angles and “super fast response.” The Wave’s display is also touted for its tempered glass and anti-smudge surface.
From http://tvtonight.televisionshop.info/samsung-hl-s5087w-50-inch-1080p-dlp-hdtv-on-sale/
The Samsung Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe) Video Enhancer refines all analog NTSC and wideband video inputs for an overall improvement in picture quality. DNIe improves contrast, white level, picture detail and incorporates digital noise reduction to improve lower quality video inputs. The 3-line digital comb filter constantly analyzes the three dimensions of picture height, picture width, and picture changes-over-time to dramatically reduce edge image artifacts while improving transition detail. Samsung’s Cinema Smooth 3:2 pull-down film mode corrects for the artificial frames created when films are converted to DVDs. The result is a clearer image without the subtle motion artifacts caused by 24-to-30 frames per second video conversion.
Samsung’s DNIe™
Samsung’s DNIe™ technology offers digital perfection in naturally presented, crystal-clear images that uncover even the most minute detail.
Motion Optimizer: The visual data are automatically broken down into signal and noise and adjusted through a combined spatial/temporal process to eliminate noise and blurring without the slightest damage to the original signal. This guarantees the viewer a picture of astounding sharpness, whether the scene is still or moving.
Contrast Enhancer: DNIe has done away with the unwanted side-effects that conventional contrast enhancement can produce, such as noise boost-up and flicker by developing an algorithm that recognizes over 1 million criteria for applying contrast. Its detail contrast enhancement technology can automatically analyze up to 70,000 local images within a frame, treating the viewer to a picture rich in contrast even in the tiniest details.
Color optimizer: For each scene the color optimizer calculates the saturation of red, green, and blue in the input signal and adjusts it to the shades that the human eye accepts as natural. Even a conventional process like white tone enhancement produces more striking results when when used with DNIe. The end result is a palette of vivid hues and pure white tones to satisfy the most discerning viewers eye.
Detail enhancer: Many viewers complain of the unnatural effect that conventional uniform detail enhancement produces by relying on artificial amplification of the input signal. In contrast, DNIe automatically analyzes the portion to be amplified, detecting and re-processing any noise or defect to bring the viewer a startlingly sharp and lifelike image.
Samsung DNIe ‘Pixel’ [sangafilms YouTube channel, Dec 5, 2007]
“Nature created DNA, but SAMSUNG developed DNIe.” Samsung Electronics Unveils New “Natural Image” Technology for Digital TV [Samsung press release, April 2003]
– Digital TVs with new DNIe technology are being put on the world market. DNIe technology can be applied to all digital TV types—LCD, PDP, projection or CRT.
– The cleanest and most natural images are produced under all viewing conditions.
– Samsung, which leads the world market in color TVs, TFT-LCDs, and color monitors, aims to do the same with digital TVs.Samsung Electronics has developed the Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe) that greatly improves the clarity and detail of images reproduced by color TVs. The company expects its technology breakthrough to elevate the Samsung brand the top of the rapidly growing world digital TV market.
On April 29, Samsung Electronics held a briefing on the new DNIe technology and digital TV business strategy. On display were PDP, LCD, projection and cathode ray tube (CRT) models supported by DNIe, which offers far greater image detail than conventional digital TVs. Samsung Electronics began its research project to improve picture quality back in 1996 and implemented it in stages. The first prototype digital TV with DNIe was ready last December. The technology can be used with all types of digital TVs to re-create natural colors that truly please. Last year, Samsung sold more color TVs than any other manufacturer, and now the company is ready to do the same in the digital TV market.
DNIe technology optimizes the moving picture image and color, while the contrast ratio and fine details are amplified. These four processes automatically and precisely capture broadcast signals in all formats, from analog to high definition. This high clarity, high detail image technology provides the best possible picture quality under all conditions.
Last December, Samsung Electronics completed development of the four processes. The next four months were applying the new technology to CRT TVs (29”-32”), DLP projection TVs (43” to 61”), CRT projection TVs (43” to 52”) PDP TVs (42” to 63”) and LCD TVs (32” to 40”) and commercializing the new products.
Significance of New DNIe Technology
Samsung Electronics’ high clarity, high detail image technology is the product of a determined effort to improve picture quality. This approach is far more than a simple picture improvement based on analog signal reception. Rather, the new technology produces complete image quality; any signal input comes out cleaner and more natural.
DNIe can completely eliminate blurring from movement or image prolongation. A deep contrast can also be achieved. What is more, the finest detail appears sharp, while the vivid natural color is most pleasing to the eye.
The Samsung Electronics briefing clearly demonstrated the superiority of the company’s latest technology over conventional technology. The company has received 85 foreign and domestic patents related to DNIe, including a basic technology patent for contrast reproduction.
DNIe Technology in a Nutshell
Samsung’s unique DNIe technology encompasses four functions that analyze all signal input, from analog to high definition, in stages. The volume of noise in the signal is detected and the signal level is classified according into analog, SD or HD and then optimized accordingly.
Motion Optimizer: Processes Noise More Completely than Ever Before
This noise processing technology integrates temporal and spatial concepts to ensure clear images even when the motion is very fast.
Contrast Enhancer: For a Deeper Contrast
This technology employs a contrast ratio of one million or more and a new algorithm that can reproduce the optimal contrast to provide a deep and rich image quality.
Detail Enhancer: Complete Images, True to the Finest Detail
A vastly improved technology for automatically analyzing the picture signal reproduces images in amazing detail, resulting in more lifelike video.
Color Optimizer: Vivid, Natural Colors
The video signals being generated are analyzed and the quantities of reds, greens and blues are calculated to provide the colors most natural to the human eye.
Samsung DNIe [tnbtsingapore YouTube channel, Aug 12, 2010]
FAQs: What is DNIe [Samsung, Oct 10, 2012]
Samsung’s Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe TM) is a set of four advanced image processing technologies that makes digital TVs, including various types of displays such as LCD, PDP, projection, and CRT, produce the clearest, most detailed, and yet most natural-looking images ever.
The four technologies used by DNIe are:
Motion Optimiser: eliminates noise, even in moving pictures
Contrast Enhancer: increases the contrast
Detail Enhancer: sharpens pictures and makes details visible
Color Optimiser: provides natural and vibrant colours
The secret of DNIe TM begins with an Intelligent Analyser that analyses any kind of input signal to optimise the picture quality. By analysing the frequency characteristics of the input signal, the Analyser automatically detects the amount of noise in the signal, identifies the source level as analogue, SD, or HD, and even determines whether it has been scaled.
Through this analysis of the input signal at the first stage of the DNIe TM process, the Intelligent Analyser ensures that the optimal adjustments is made throughout the remaining four stages to the production of the final output.
DNIe technology is not only suitable for all usual input signals for television reception today, such as analogue, cable, satellite and digital, it also works with the input signals of DVD, camcorders and game computers.
DNIeTM R&D History
Progress in picture quality enhancement has been achieved through sustained research and investment at Samsung, beginning in 1996 with an independent project. In 1997, Samsung’s project developed a noise reduction function for the image enhancement of CRT TVs.
In 2000, Samsung embarked on a new picture quality enhancement project and confirmed its potential for production. By 2001, the fruits of these research efforts had laid the technological foundations for the birth of Samsung’s full-fledged image enhancement algorithm.
In March 2002, the basic version of Samsung’s unique DNIe technology was ready. At last it was possible to obtain optimal picture quality with signals ranging from RF all the way up to HD. The development of DNIe was completed by 2002, and early 2003 this radical new technology caught the eye of the world in a successful demo at a show in Las Vegas.
For more information on (DNIe) Digital Natural Image engine click Here
DNIe – Digital Natural Image engine [Birds-Eye.Net, Apr 3, 2011]
DNIe, or Digital Natural Image engine, is a “natural image” technology introduced by Samsung in 2003. Originally developed as part of a concerted effort by Samsung to improve television picture quality on non-high-definition-televisions, the DNIe chip is now used in Samsung’s plasma and high definition televisions (HDTV). DNIe makes input signals sharper, clearer and more lifelike. Its advanced image processors help to create true-to-life colors and high contrast, while pretty much eliminating digital artifacts.
DNIe offers better detail than conventional televisions by using four proprietary processes that optimize and enhance image quality and sound: a Motion Optimizer that is a noise processing technology used to eliminate blurring and noise in fast moving images and thus producing a more natural-looking motion; a Contrast Enhancer that offers rich details and image quality through brightness and contrast levels that are enhanced for deeper, richer blacks with greater detail, and more natural whites; a Detail Enhancer that automatically analyzes the picture signal elements in order to produce sharper detail, clearer image separation and more natural edge transition; and a Color Optimizer that analyzes the video signals being generated so that the quantities of reds, greens, and blues are calculated to provide colors with a more lifelike realism, where whites are more accurate, and skin tones are given a more natural hue. DNIe also offers Samsung’s patented “My Color Control” technology that the user to control specific colors without affecting the whole screen, providing six color-control selections: white, red, pink, yellow, green and blue, so the user can adjust a color to their liking.
Other Related Definitions for DNIe
“The secret of DNIe TM begins with an Intelligent Analyzer that analyzes any kind of input signal to optimize the picture quality. By analyzing the frequency characteristics of the input signal, the Analyzer automatically detects the amount of noise in the signal, identifies the source level as analogue, SD, or HD, and even determines whether it has been scaled.” [Samsung]
“The SAMSUNG DNIe vision is an image enhancement algorithm with remarkable engines that work in tandem and individually to improve the visual quality. This technology from SAMSUNG that spells the end of conventional television.” [Samsung]
“SAMSUNG’s DNIe Pro (Digital Natural Image engine) ensures the clearest, most natural images imaginable. Colour and motion are optimised and the contrast and detail are enhanced to ensure unprecedented image quality.” [Samsung]
“Samsung’s proprietary technology, DNIe – Digital Natural Image engine – is the secret to stunning HDTV picture quality. DNIe optimizes six different elements of image quality such as color balance, sharpness, and motion to reproduce the most life-like and vibrant picture throughout Samsung’s broad portfolio.” [Samsung]
“DNIe generally improves most HD and DVD content with a few exceptions, but it’s a mixed bag with NTSC sources. Many HD and DVD images are made sharper with DNIe, contrast is improved, and color accuracy is enhanced in many scenes.” [Extremetech.com]
“DNIe is Samsung’s image “enhancement” engine…On the surface these claims sound great, but on closer examination most of these features are either impossible (6 times density enhancer) or undesirable (dynamic contrast ratio). For every image DNIe makes better there are two images that it makes worse. There is no way these sets can hold a calibration with DNIe enabled. If accuracy is desired DNIe should be turned off and left off. On the HLP DNIe can be easily disabled in the user menu. It should be noted that there are a few models of Samsung DLPs (notably the HLR series) that have DNIe permanently enabled. Before purchasing a Samsung display I would make sure that DNIe can be toggled from the user menus.” [Gadgetbench.com]
“DNIe is a video enhancer that makes the picture more colorful and lifelike. You can tell too. In the DNIe product demo, the screen is split – one side shows natural footage, the other shows DNIe enhanced footage. The difference is remarkable. The natural footage is boring and robbed of color while the DNIe footage is bright and crisp. The user controls when DNIe is used, which is good because not everyone will want enhanced video all the time – like an editor previewing footage to see what color correction is required.” [Matthew Torres]
Links Related to DNIe
Nature created DNA, but SAMSUNG developed DNIe – Samsung Electronics Unveils New “Natural Image” Technology for Digital TV
What is DNIe? – Digital Natural Image engine
Technical Resources for DNIe
Feel the DNIe – Video demo of DNIe and Technical Information
Blogs about DNIe
Samsung Village – Official Samsung blog for news and inside stories
Books about DNIe
Digital Video and HD, Second Edition: Algorithms and Interfaces (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Graphics) – by by Charles A. Poynton
Global Marketing Management – by Kiefer Lee and Steve Carter
Other DNIe Related Books
Section 3
Smartphone HSPA+ Platform (from 2013 Products of Broadcom [Feb 8, 2013]):
- BCM28145: 720p 4G HSPA+ Smartphone Processor
-
BCM28155: 1080p 4G HSPA+ Smartphone Processor
Broadcom CEO Discusses Q4 2012 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha, Jan 29, 2013]
Scott A. McGregor – Chief Executive Officer, President and Director
Samsung launched the Galaxy Grand, Grand Duos, and Galaxy S2 Plus, leveraging our complete Android platform, which includes our 3G cellular SOC and wireless connectivity.
We also have more than 40 designs in process in China on our turnkey reference platforms. Our technology mix is trending to HSPA+ dual core application processors and additional connectivity, features which command a meaningful ASP premium.
The Galaxy Grand, for example, includes Broadcom’s dual core SOC NFC controller, connectivity combo with built-in WiFi, Bluetooth and FM, RF transceiver, power management, and GPS.
From Broadcom Corp. – Analyst/Investor Day, December 6, 2012 (slides from here)
Robert Americo Rango, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom’s Mobile and Wireless Group:
Broadcom’s focus is on 3G and 4G. The reason we’re focused on 3G is because we see the 3G market continuing to grow. We see it being very important for emerging markets. And we see the 3G market taking over the feature phone market going forward. So for emerging markets, our focus is on 3G. And then the 4G market, of course, for developing regions like the U.S. Big investment in 4G, a lot of progress to report, and I’ll get into this in my presentation. So focused on both because these — this is where the growth is, and this is where the action is in the market.
So 2 years ago, we had one 3G smartphone SoC. That was the 21553. And you can see that’s the 7.2-megabit modem, single-core device. It could address screen sizes, say, from 3 to 3.5 inches. And this was the device that last year I talked about that powered the Samsung GALAXY Y, which was one of the most popular smartphones in India. Now, over the last year, we added 2 chips that we announced earlier this year, the 21654 and the 28145. We switched from 65-nanometer to 40-nanometer, and we went from single core to dual core. So — and you can see that it helped us address a bigger part of the market. We were able to move up to the 4- to 5-inch phone screen size.
Now today, with the announcement of the 21664 and extension of the 28145 to the 28155, we now have a full family of solutions on 3G. We can cover anything from 3 inch, all the way up to 7 to 10-inch, which would be a tablet. More interesting actually is the 5 to 7-inch category, because the phablet is growing at a 93% compounded average growth rate. And phablets turn out to be one of the biggest growth areas for phones in Asia, okay? So Broadcom has the ability now to address this entire market. And again, why is that important? Because once a customer invests in one of these chips and picks up the Broadcom software suite for one, it can quickly be applied to an entire family of products.
Now, again, 3G market is very competitive. We all know that 3G is probably the most competitive segment out there. The reason that we can win is because we have a family of devices here that offer different feature points, different cost points and allow us to make money at these various cost points, okay? So a full range of 3G for all of the segments is now complete.
Now, let me highlight one other point. So 82% of the volume is in this 5-inch and below, but I did mention the phablet being an important segment.
Now, let me highlight our multimedia capability. I just wanted to compare the 28155 on the right to the HTC One X on the left. So HTC One X is a phone you can buy today. HTC One X is the phone that has been touted to have a lot of multimedia capability, world-class imaging, world-class image signal processing. This is the post-processing that goes on, on the pictures to make the pictures look good. A console gaming capability, good browsing experience, a 720 HD screen, Miracast capability that I just described to you, this ability to beam videos from your phone to a TV as well as Wi-Fi Direct. All these are the multimedia capabilities touted by the HTC One X.
Now last year, I talked about the economics of the chips that we were announcing. For those of you who were here, I talked about how Broadcom’s ability to integrate with — change the economics of the smartphone business. And here’s a perfect example of how it changed it, okay? So HTC One X, tear it apart, what do you see inside? Three different chips. A thin modem chip, a quad-core application processor, discrete application processor, and a discrete ISP chip.
Tear apart one of our 28155 phones, what do you see inside? One chip, integrated modem, application processor, graphics and ISP. Okay. So I told you I would exemplify the power of the 28155, and I wanted to talk today about Samsung’s — Samsung is going to be announcing a series of phones based on Broadcom’s 28155 dual core HSPA+. I’m holding the first one in my hand. This is the GALAXY S II Plus, okay? And again if you look go back and look at the GALAXY S II, you’ll see a similar architecture, GALAXY S II Plus, based on 28155, is based on the Broadcom chip, the integrated chip. So those economics that I was talking to you about, they come to play right here with the Samsung GALAXY S II Plus. And in fact, there’s a series of phones that Samsung will be putting out based on the 28155 over the next couple of quarters.
So and then beyond that, what have we done in 2012? We’re working on customer diversity. And in order to achieve customer diversity in today’s 3G market, you need what’s called a turnkey device, a turnkey design. And you might ask what’s the difference between a turnkey and a reference design? Well, a turnkey is something that can quickly be put into production by a customer. So I’m holding up Broadcom’s 28155 turnkey design. And you can see it’s very thin, it’s very light, it’s the kind of phone that you’d want to carry with you. We have a design file that we can offer a customer. And it can reduce their investment from 6 to 9 months of time, down to 30 to 60 days. Where it used to take 200 to 300 engineers to put a design in production, now it’s something like 20 to 30 engineers because we’ve done the turnkey design. And this design is so complete, we have second-sourced the major components, the panel, the sensor, the memory, and we picked suppliers that are favorite suppliers for companies in China who are really building, taking advantage of these turnkeys. So what we’re doing is we’re enabling our handset companies to focus on what they do best, brand and distribution, and we focus on what we do best, which is engineering execution, okay? And we now have turnkeys for 21654, which is our single-core device, 40-nanometer single core; 21664, which is the part we just announced yesterday, which is our low-cost dual-core device, HSPA+ capable; and our 28155, which is what I’m holding up right now, which is our high-end dual core HSPA+ device. Okay.
So a lot of activity has been spawned by this — by these turnkeys and, again, this is a capability we’ve put in place in 2012. So it’s hard to measure the progress yet, but I tried to do that with this chart. And you can see, even in the short time that we’ve had the turnkey capability in place, the number of designs have gone up significantly, almost threefold. So significant number of designs that are currently going on, 15 from last year to 44. So you can see the power of the turnkey design because it enables companies — handset companies, to quickly adopt our platforms.
So talk some more about our expanding cellular SoC share. If you focus on that first row now, those are the phones that I’d like to highlight. Of course, I just mentioned the Samsung GALAXY S II, and I mentioned that there’ll be a series of phones based on Broadcom’s 28155 dual core HSPA+ coming from Samsung. The other phones you see here, GALAXY Chat, GALAXY Music, GALAXY Pocket Plus, are the beginning of a series of phones that are coming out on our single core HSPA+ device. And I’d also like to point to some of these interesting carrier-branded phones, okay? Kind of a blessing our 3G technology in the world’s biggest carriers: T-Mobile, with Concord, this is our first 3G phone in the U.S. market; Vodafone, with the Smart II and Orange. All phones based on Broadcom 3G SoCs, okay? And then all the phones in the bottom row, all in production still, all rolling along with our first 3G SoC, that’s the 21553 that I talked to you about last year. Samsung GALAXY Y is still selling like gangbusters along with a number of these Samsung smartphones in the developing countries, okay? So a lot of progress on 3G. And you can see a number of Chinese vendors on the chart, TCL, ZTE, G’FIVE, Sprocomm. Those are all customers and certainly, there’s other customers in China now working on our turnkey designs.
So exemplifying that growth we have in the 3G space, this chart shows that from Q3 2011, Q3 2012, we grew our 3G business 500%. Pretty big growth. More important to me though, is the market share that we command. You can see that Strategy Analytics has now recognized that Broadcom has 15% of the 3G/4G Android smartphone SoC ecosystem, okay? 15%. And we haven’t started shipping our 4G LTE solution yet, okay? So again, significant market share gains over the last 24 months in the most important ecosystem for us, which is Android, 15% market share.
… roughly 15 different customers that make up that 44. And if you talk about when products hit the market, I mean, I think, they’re starting — they’re going to start hitting the market in — over the next 3 months. …
… you’re asking, should I worry about the vertical integration at Samsung? And I think anything Samsung does on vertical integration only applies to one segment of their business. I mean, if you look at Samsung’s business, it’s very broad. Everything from entry-level smartphones, midrange 3G smartphones, 4G smartphones, they have a very broad portfolio. In order for them to make money in all these areas, they need chips that are optimized for each one of those segments. And I think I exemplified that with the 28155 for the GALAXY S II Plus. So I think the risk of vertical integration is kind of overblown because you just need to apply the best solution to the particular class of product you’re building. …
… we see Wi-Fi changing very rapidly and it will change even in the China market. So we don’t see the need to go integrate it. We believe the idea of having a connectivity island and a SoC island with app processor graphics and cellular modem, is the right partitioning for the next couple of years. …
My question is, I guess, is do you think your timing — it seems like now, you’ll really going to hit the market, 2014 is when you get any significant revenues. Is that — are you going to really miss out on the profit pools while you’re fighting it out at the — with MediaTek at the midrange and low-end, meanwhile your good buddies in Southern California capture all this profit and then use that to attack you elsewhere?
… if you look at the 3G space, it’s a lot more than just China. Right? I mean, I just showed you all the different phones from Samsung that are still coming out on 3G. So I do not believe that there’s not money to be made in 3G. Okay? Having said that, a big investment in 4G, absolutely recognize the importance. We’re moving very fast we have a big R&D investment in 4G. We think we’re going to get there in time to hit the sweet spot of the 4G market. And 4G will last for many years to come.
Can you talk a little bit about your position on the RF side of the equation? You’re building full turnkey solutions now, there’s a lot of complexity on the RF side of the handset and whether you have the applicable tool kit to do more integration on that side.
That’s an easy question because we have one of the world’s most capable RF teams in Broadcom. Broadcom pioneered CMOS RF, implementing RF in CMOS. And you can — as witnessed by our patent portfolio, which is second to none. We have a very capable team. The team has built RF chips for all of our devices. And I mentioned earlier that we sell more wireless chips with integrated RF than any company on the planet. So I’m very confident in the capabilities. They are doing the RF for all of our complete platforms that I showed you. So whether it’s 21553, 21654, 21664, 28155, those are complemented with Broadcom RF internal, 100% Broadcom IP. And again over the course of time, we can integrate all these IP into a single chip. That’s the reason these big OEMs, these big handset OEMs want to work with Broadcom because they know eventually all these connectivity pieces will integrate into a single connectivity island, and same thing with the baseband island.
As it relates to the wins that you had earlier this year with the single-core platform like let’s say for example going into Samsung, I think the rough dollar content is about $10 to $12. Because you’re not only supplying the baseband, you’re supplying the power management, RF, integrated connectivity. And I think you’ve told us before that as the team moves to the dual-core platform, very similar to the GALAXY S II plus announcement today, that it’s roughly about a $7 to $9 increase in dollar content. So first question is, is that still the case?
I think you’re asking is can our dual core — our 28155, for example, which is our high-end dual core, okay. As I mentioned, this is part that has integrated ISP. That’s the same ISP engine that Nokia used for their 41-megapixel camera that’s on board our 28155 device. We also have very high-end graphics on that device. The graphics on Broadcom 28155 rivals lot of the 4G SOCs that are out there. In fact, it surpasses a number of them, okay. So when you compare the price of that to the single core, absolutely the price delta would be in the range that you mentioned, okay, the ASP uplift.
And then the second question is, as a team rolls out the turnkey solution, my sense is that there is still a lot of customization that has to be done on the software and the firmware set for your customers.
… the idea behind the turnkey is not to have a lot of customization. The way that a company — a handset company could take advantage of our turnkey is to perhaps change the color, perhaps change the idea a little bit, but not change it. And that’s really what’s important. So there isn’t a lot of customization needed. We do all of the Android integration, all the tests. And we make sure all of the Android certification tests pass when we deliver that turnkey design. So if somebody wanted to put their own skin on top of it, we could do that, but would really prefer when it comes to the turnkey that they don’t touch anything, that they use this as their experience phone, if you will.
12 months from now, most of the growth of the smartphone market is coming from emerging markets, much lower-end mix, can you help me understand how that impacts the content, the pricing, the competitive landscape, the profitability? Is that China market really going to be it’s a Broadcom turnkey solution or it’s a MediaTek turnkey solution and whoever has that turnkey solution wins it all?
… first of all, every handset company, any smartphone handset company is — are spinning their 3G offerings today. So in order to — for them to take advantage of the growth in 3G, they’re all having to reduce their costs. They are all having to move to more integrated solutions. So I don’t see it as just a China play, okay. So I see it’s a worldwide event. And that certainly in China, I think the turnkey does help significantly because if you look at Tier 2s and Tier 3s in China, they don’t have as much engineering resource. So I do think it’s a big swing, an advantage to have a full turnkey and be able to supply this multi-sourcing capability to those Chinese customers. But again, the 3G turnover is going to happen across the world, not just in China.
SUPPLEMENTAL CONTENT:
Source: Broadcom 2012 Analyst Day Supplemental Content, Dec 6, 2012
BCM28145/28155
Dual Core 720p/1080p HSPA+ Baseband Processors [Broadcom product page, Feb 24, 2012]
The BCM28145/BCM28155 HSPA+ baseband processors are highly integrated high-performance dual-core CPUs implemented in a cost effective 40 nm LP process that squarely targets today’s power-conscious mobile platforms. These devices, combined with their complete reference platform, provide system designers with everything needed to bring next-generation mobile devices to market while also providing an extremely flexible platform for application, video, and multimedia developers.
BCM28145/BCM28155 devices integrate high performance dual-core ARM® Cortex-A9 processors, each with a NEON floating-point SIMD processing engine. A powerful 2D/3D graphics engine, the latest audio codecs, and advanced video and image processing capabilities are all delivered by the integrated Broadcom VideoCore-IV® technology.
Features
Advanced 2G/3G modem with support for 21/5.8 Mbps HSPA+ and Class 33 EDGE
Advanced applications processing subsystem
– Dual ARM cortex-A9 processors with NEON extensions, up to 1.2 GHz per core
– VideoCore-IV multimedia and imaging processor
– Support for 20-Mpixel imaging, 720p (28145) /1080p (28155) video capture and playback, and accelerated 2D/3D graphics
– Full integration of audio subsystemHigh performance memory and peripheral interfaces
– 400 MHz LPDDR2 memory interface (single-28145, dual-28155)
– High-speed e.MMC/SD/SDIO and NAND interfaces
– CPI and MIPI® CSI-2 and MIPI DPI-2, DBI-B and DBI-C DSI serial camera and display interfaces
Source: Broadcom 2012 Analyst Day Supplemental Content, Dec 6, 2012
See also:
– Broadcom Introduces New Platforms Optimized for Android ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ Smartphones [Broadcom press release, Feb 27, 2012]
Single and Dual Core Processors with VideoCore® Technology Provide Premium Android Experience
…
Broadcom’s new family of 3G platforms will enable handset OEMs to affordably deliver a premium Android 4.0 user experience across multiple smartphone product tiers. The Broadcom® BCM21654G features a 1 GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor, an integrated 7.2/5.8 Mbps HSPA modem and low-power VGA video support. The BCM28145 and BCM28155 include dual ARM Cortex A9 cores up to 1.3 GHz, 21/5.8 Mbps HSPA+ modems and HD 720p and 1080p, video respectively. All three chips were developed in an advanced, low power 40 nanometer process technology and are complemented by radio frequency (RF), power management unit (PMU) and an advanced connectivity suite for a complete system solution.
All three platforms are sampling to customers and expected to be in production in the second half of 2012.
Optimized for Superior Android 4.0 ICS Smartphones:
Broadcom’s industry-leading VideoCore technology offers a ‘third processing core’ to offload the application processor, enriching the Ice Cream Sandwich user experience with the industry’s lowest power HD playback and camcorder capabilities up to 1080p.
Low latency memory and bus architecture boosts overall system performance for a highly responsive user interface.
Highest quality imaging is provided by Broadcom’s latest Image Signal Processor (ISP) that supports cameras up to 42 megapixels, with very low light capabilities and wide dynamic range for the sharpest images.
From Broadcom Corp. – Analyst/Investor Day, December 14, 2011
Robert Americo Rango, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom’s Mobile and Wireless Group:
… Broadcom has been investing for many years, actually, since 2004 when we did an acquisition, in graphics. In fact, we call it VideoCore, and that, it’s maybe a misnomer, it should be called MediaCore because this dedicated IP block does graphics, it does image signal processing. When your image comes off the camera, you need to post-process it, that’s called image signal processing, okay? And it does video. So you can’t do those functions well with standard application processors. You need to do that with dedicated hardware, dedicated customized hardware, and that’s called VideoCore.
Source: Broadcom 2011 Analyst Day, Dec 14, 2011
Now let’s see how we do versus the industry’s competition. One of the most recognized benchmarks that’s out there is called Taiji. It’s the OpenGL ES 2.0 benchmark most people will recognize as benchmark, as a very important benchmark. And what you see here is Broadcom versus Qualcomm versus TI. In fact, this TI chip, I think, is running the latest version of some of Ice Cream Sandwich phones that are out there. And you can see that Broadcom’s VideoCore is able to render over 50 frames a second while some of the competition can barely get to 30. And in fact, just another data point comparing Broadcom VideoCore 4, all this — again, this is a fair comparison because it’s comparing what’s in production to what’s in production. Our VideoCore 4 is in production in many different Nokia phones, smartphones. And Nokia’s multimedia experience is widely considered to be one of the best. Now comparing VideoCore 4, which again is in production, to one of Imagination’s latest IP cores, we’re 1/2 the power and 2x the performance.
So some of our competitors don’t have this IP. They go often license it from a company like Imagination. It sounds good on paper until you have a problem. And a customer calls you up and says, “Hey, this game, this Modern Warfare 3 won’t run,” and that company has to go call Imagination. Okay, Broadcom doesn’t have to do that. We’re a one-stop shop. All this IP that I’m talking about is owned and within Broadcom so I can walk down the hall, knock on the engineer’s door and say, “What were you thinking when you designed this?” and I usually get an answer very quickly. And I think that’s the respect we have with our customers, okay? We have the IP in-house. Okay, so the industry’s best graphics performance and power consumption. …
Broadcom Announces 1080p Multimedia Processor with Breakthrough Mobile Power-Performance [Broadcom press release, Dec 15, 2009]
New Broadcom® BCM2763 VideoCore® IV Processor Features 1080p Video, 20 Megapixel Photos and 1 Gigapixel Graphics in an Ultra-Low Power 40 Nanometer Design
Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced its next generation multimedia processor that delivers industry leading performance and lower power in the top multimedia categories for mobile devices. Using 40 nanometer (40nm) CMOS process technology, the new Broadcom® BCM2763 VideoCore® IV multimedia processor provides even higher integration, smaller footprint size and lower power consumption than 65nm designs.
With the higher integration and significant power savings from 40nm CMOS process technology, the BCM2763multimedia processor features the most advanced mobile high definition (HD) camcorder and video playback, up to 20 megapixel digital camera and photo image processing, and 1 gigapixel 2D/3D graphics rendering for a world-class gaming experience. HD video, 3D games and high resolution 20 megapixel pictures can be displayed at top quality on full-sized HD televisions and monitors using an on-chip industry standard HDMI interface. Additionally, the BCM2763‘s highly integrated architecture reduces bill-of-materials (BOM) cost to help drive sophisticated multimedia features into more affordable handsets.
Highlights/Key Facts:
The breadth and quality of Internet multimedia content is rapidlyimproving, with sites such as YouTube now supporting full HD 1080p video sharing. Consumers are also increasingly using cell phones as their primary digital camera and camcorder, which is driving demand for higher resolution and more sophisticated image processing which is currently only available on advanced standalone camcorders and cameras. Additionally, newer graphics-oriented user interfaces and mobile games now require enhanced graphics capabilities.
The new Broadcom BCM2763 VideoCore IV multimedia processor enables best-in-class performance in the following areas:
Full HD 1080p camcorder capabilities in a cell phone with significantly improved quality over current generation handsets (which generally have VGA or lower resolution camcorders).
Up to 20 megapixel digital camera with advanced features such as multiple shots per second, image stabilization, face and smile detection and panorama mode.
The ability to render mobile games natively at up to 1080p resolution, which in combination with an on-board HDMI output, allows a console-quality gaming experience on large screen HDTVs.
In addition to providing these capabilities on new handsets, the BCM2763 has improved power savings using a 40nm process without draining the battery or significantly reducing talk time. Additional ultra-low power consumption features include:
20% to 50% power reduction in comparison to the prior generation Videocore III multimedia processor.
4 to 6 hours of 1080p video recording and 8 to 10 hours of mobile playback, with up to 16 hours of full HD playback over HDMI given sufficient handset storage.
Only 490 mW of chip power is required for 1080p camcorder H.264 High Profile encoding and only 160 mW for 1080p playback.
Only 160 mW of power is required for mobile game graphics processing, supporting up to 1 gigapixel per second fill rates and improves graphics performance by a factor of 4x to 6x in comparison to the prior generation Videocore III multimedia processor.
The BCM2763 processor integrates the key functionality and components needed to drive advanced multimedia capabilities in new handsets. As a result of this high integration, the BCM2763 enables a lower overall BOM cost, enabling manufacturers to pass these lower costs on and introduce advanced features to lower tier phones than previously possible.
The BCM2763 integrates the functions of eight chips including GPU and graphics memory, image signal processing (ISP) and ISP memory, video processing and video memory, HDMI and USB 2.0. 128MB of LPDDR2 graphics memory is stacked in a single package.
The 40nm process enables reduced power, improved performance and reduced handset board space.
Benefiting from an existing VideoCore software code base and legacy architecture, manufacturers of phones and other consumer electronics devices can easily add these new VideoCore IV multimedia features to their products, allowing faster time-to-market.
The BCM2763 is currently sampling to early access customers (pricing available upon request). Handsets utilizing this new 40nm VideoCore IV multimedia processor technology are expected to reach the market in 2011.
Supporting Quotes:
Mark Casey, Vice President & General Manager, Broadcom’s Mobile Multimedia line of business.
“VideoCore IV is setting new benchmarks for performance, power consumption and affordability and is poised to drive advanced multimedia capabilities into new tiers of handsets. Supported by our comprehensive line of complementary cellular and connectivity solutions, our multimedia processor technology is the right choice for next generation mobile designs.”
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About Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is a major technology innovator and global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications. Broadcom products enable the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia to and throughout the home, the office and the mobile environment. We provide the industry’s broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip and software solutions to manufacturers of computing and networking equipment, digital entertainment and broadband access products, and mobile devices. These solutions support our core mission: Connecting everything®.
Broadcom is one of the world’s largest fabless semiconductor companies, with 2008 revenue of $4.66 billion, and holds over 3,650 U.S. and over 1,450 foreign patents, more than 7,750 additional pending patent applications, and one of the broadest intellectual property portfolios addressing both wired and wireless transmission of voice, video, data and multimedia.
A FORTUNE 500® company, Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. Broadcom may be contacted at +1.949.926.5000 or at www.broadcom.com.
Qualcomm moving to Applications DSP (ADSP)
Qualcomm’s Hexagon™ DSP [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, Feb 1, 2013]
[see also: Qualcomm Advocates Parallel Computing By Joining HSA [OnQ blog from Qualcomm, Oct 3, 2012]]
Source and more information: QDSP6 V4: Qualcomm Gives Customers and Developers Programming Access to its DSP Core [BDTi, June 22, 2012] [Applications of Digital Signal Processing in Mobile Computing Devices]
At the January IEEE International Conference on Emerging Signal Processing Applications (IEEE-ESPA), Dr. Raj Talluri, Qualcomm’s Vice President of Product Management, used portions of his plenary talk [Applications of Digital Signal Processing in Mobile Computing Devices] to showcase key target applications for the QDSP6 architecture. Some of them were predictable case studies of already-established DSP opportunities: audio processing (encoding, decoding, transcoding, noise cancellation, bass boost, virtual surround and other enhancement functions), along with various types of still image and video processing tasks. The increasingly ubiquitous H.264 video codec received particular showcase …
… Other highlighted applications in the IEEE-ESPA presentation were more trendsetting. Talluri mentioned, for example, the conversion between 2-D and 3-D versions of a polygon- or pixel-based image or video, for appropriate-format output to an integrated or tethered display. He also noted the execution time and power consumption improvements that could be garnered by migrating an augmented reality application from a 100% CPU-based approach to one that fully leverages the integrated QDSP6 V3 DSP core (Figure 6).
Source for the Figure 6: the same as above
Hexagon™ DSP Augmented Reality Demonstration on a Snapdragon S4 (MSM8960) from Qualcomm Applications DSP (ADSP) [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, Feb 5, 2013]
From ‘Applications of Digital Signal Processing in Mobile Computing Devices’ by Raj Talluri [as reported by Susie Wee, Cisco VP & CTEO, Jan 13, 2012]
Closing thoughts:
- Mobile computing apps are dominated by digital signal processing tasks
- There are compute modules that can be used in app processors on smartphones
- Apps processors need to continue to improve in performance and low power
Notable observations given before that by Raj Talluri:
- 300M smartphones sold per year in 2010. Qualcomm predicts 1B per year in 2015
- The highest volume of camera sales is in your mobile phones. Lots of opp for image processing & computer vision.
- Most mobile phones have multiple microphones. Can be used for lots of signal processing apps.
- There is a big opportunity for sensor fusion as there is large number of sensors in every mobile phone. Sensor fusion opportunity: Shake detection – detect shakes, then remove blurring.
- Lots of signal processing is done to provide smooth gesture interactions on phone.
- When breaking down the amount of signal processing needed for games multi-core CPU and GPU processing is key.
Raj Talluri, “Programmes of Innovative Development” [“Wireless &Mobile” session of rASiA.com Business Forum in Moscow, May 16, 2012, published on Aug 10, 2012]
[15:00] Enhancing User Experience
[15:04] Video Telephony + 3D Gaming
[15:45] “A little video clip which shows you other things we do in gaming”
- It’s blidingly fast
- It’s insanely crisp
- Augmented reality
- It’s effortlessly connected
- It’s innately social
- Peer-to-peer
- It’s abundantly armed
- Snapdragon Game command
- It’s unusually versatile
- It’s absurdly efficient
[17:00] 3D Positional Audio Using Open SL
- Advanced reverb and virtual surround
- 3D positional audio, bass boost, DSP acceleration
- Collaboration with SRS
[see also:
– SRS Completes Integration of TruMedia onto Hexagon DSP based Snapdragon Platforms [SRS Labs press release via BusinessWire, June 29, 2012] which relates to the
– earlier agreement to Integrate SRS Audio Technology on Qualcomm’s Reference Design Development Platform [SRS Labs press release via BusinessWire, Dec 8, 2011] as well as to
– SRS Labs and Qualcomm Sign Licensing Agreement to Bring HD-Quality Audio to Mobile Devices [SRS Labs press release via BusinessWire, March 22, 2011]][17:47] Dolby Multi-channel Audio
- Dolby Digital Plus delivers a richer, cinematic audio experience to mobile
- Scalable and extensible for optimization to available bandwidth
- Supports many existing and emerging home theater, broadcast, online, and mobile applications
- Provide up to 7.1 channels of cinematic surround sound
- Enables compatibility with millions of existing home theater systems via simple conversion to Dolby Digital
[see also:
– “The Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors also introduce the very latest mobile experiences. … HD multichannel audio with DTS-HD and Dolby Digital Plus for enhanced audio” in Qualcomm Announces Next Generation Snapdragon Premium Mobile Processors [Qualcomm press release, Jan 7, 2013]
– “Qualcomm recently announced it would support Dolby Digital Plus in its new Snapdragon chipset, allowing OEMs to choose to deliver Dolby 7.1 Surround sound at the chipset level.” in Dolby Labs’ CEO Discusses F1Q12 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha, Jan 31, 2012]][18:23] Multi-burst Photo Continuous photo capture
- High-speed full resolution burst capture
- Zero shutter lag
- Continuous Auto-Focus
[19:24] Natural Human Interfaces in Next Generation Devices
- Ultrasonics processing
- IR-scanning
- Coded/structured light depth mapping
- Stylus based gestures
- Stereo sparse depth mapping
- Time-of-flight depth mapping
[20:21]
Custom DSP Architecture [#14 slide from At the Heart of Mobile Devices presentation by Qualcomm, Oct 25, 2012]
Enabling Rich User Experiences Without Sacrificing Battery Life
Qualcomm Leads in Global DSP Silicon Shipments [Wireless/DSP Market Bulletin, Forward Concepts, Nov 12, 2012]
When people speak of “DSP chips“, they are usually referring to discrete devices that are catalog or “off-the-shelf” units; although at the high end they tend to be customized for high-volume customers. And, they correctly associate Texas Instruments as the DSP chip market leader. However, those DSP chips from TI, Freescale, ADI, NEC and others constitute only about 10% of the “DSP silicon” market in revenue terms, as I have detailed in a much earlier newsletter [May 4, 2009].
The largest market for “DSP silicon” is as embedded solutions, generally thought of as System on Chip (SoC) products. Of that SoC DSP market, cellphones constitute the largest segment, with baseband modem chips being the most significant. All baseband chips consist of one or more DSP cores. Qualcomm, the clear baseband market leader, has long employed two DSP cores in each of its MSM modem chips, and of late is shipping three or more of its latest Hexagon DSP cores in its Snapdragon S4 chips. In calendar year 2011, Qualcomm shipped a reported 521 million MSM chip shipments and we estimate that an average of 2.3 of its DSP cores in each unit resulted in 1.2 billion DSPs shipped in silicon. This (calendar) year, we estimate that the company will ship an average of 2.4 DSP cores with each (more complex) MSM chip. We estimate that Qualcomm will ship about 610 million MSM chips in 2012, for a total of 1.5 billion DSPs shipped in silicon for the full year. Clearly, Qualcomm leads the global unit market for DSP silicon shipments.
Qualcomm Intros Multimode LTE Snapdragon Chips in 28nm [Wireless/DSP Market Bulletin, Forward Concepts, Nov 1, 2011]
Although the company claims to have employed them in earlier Snapdragons, this is the first public announcement we have seen of Qualcomm’s Hexagon™ DSP cores which have been under development for several years. Hexagon cores are employed in both the modem and the multimedia subsystems of the S4. According to the company, Hexagon “merges the numeric support, parallelism and wide computation engine of a DSP with the advanced system architecture of a modern microprocessor.” Qualcomm plans to release more Hexagon details and benchmarks later this quarter.
CEVA Says 927 million Basebands Shipped with its DSP Cores in 2011 [Wireless/DSP Market Bulletin, Forward Concepts, Feb 2, 2012]
CEVA, Inc. is clearly the leading licensor of DSP baseband cores and 2011 was a good year for them. All-time high quarterly and annual revenues were up 22% and 34% year-over-year, respectively. Although cellphones constitute the bulk of its licensing business, the company is aggressively pursuing the consumer business with recent design wins in Smart TV and connectivity for smartphones and solid state drives. CEVA’s IP portfolio includes not only comprehensive technologies for cellular baseband, but also multimedia (HD video, Image Signal Processing (ISP) and HD audio), voice over packet (VoP), Bluetooth, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA). In 2011, CEVA claims that its IP was shipped in over 1 billion devices, powering (at least some) handsets from 7 out of the top 8 handset OEMs, including Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony and ZTE. Today, the company claims that more than 40% of handsets shipped worldwide are powered by a CEVA DSP core.
Voice Evolution – Higher Capacity, Better Quality, A Richer Experience
[Qualcomm, May 3, 2012]
…
Qualcomm Enables the True HD-Voice Experience
Qualcomm offers market leading technologies that dramatically improve the quality of voice, and the overall voice experience. These enhancements range from new wideband codecs, Fluence™ noise suppression, active noise cancellation, VoIP optimizations, unique HDOn™ feature to support wideband codecs on narrowband channels, and many more.
- HD Voice on the OnQ blog
- HD Voice overview video [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, July 16, 2012]
…
From: The Voice Evolution [Qualcomm presentation, April 2012]
Qualcomm is working on further enhancements even in this traditional voice/audio space as evidenced by this job placement: Audio DSP Systems Engineer [Jan 23, 2013]
Job Description
… Development and deployment of various audio signal processing algorithms for Qualcomm’s chipset solutions:
- Audio and Voice compression technologies
- Audio Pre/Post Processing such as echo cancellation, noise reduction, array signal processing, audio effects, blind bandwidth extension, companding, etc.
- Ultrasound
- Voice recognition
ADC and DAC
… Desired skills
Knowledge of echo cancellation, noise reduction, array signal processing. Knowledge of voice recognition, speaker identification. Knowledge of fixed-point programming or assembly language. Knowledge of audio effects, virtualization, HRTF, 3D audio. Knowledge of ultrasound signal processing Knowledge of Psycho-acoustic modeling Audio codecs such as AAC/AAC+/MP3/Dolby/DTS, etc. Voice codecs such as AMR/AMR-WB/EVRC/EVRC-WB/EFR/TTY/CTM, etc.
In addition there is a growing partner program in the overall user experience enhancements Qualcomm Announces the Expansion of the Hexagon DSP Access Program at Uplinq 2012 [Qualcomm press release, June 27, 2012]
Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) announced today at Uplinq 2012 the expansion of the Hexagon™ DSP Access Program on select Snapdragon™ S4 processors. The new expansion provides original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) with added resources, including software development tools and support, which allow them to provide increased differentiation on multimedia features via the integrated Hexagon DSP in Snapdragon S4 processors. The program offers the ability to integrate proprietary algorithms while enabling best-in-class power dissipation and multi-threaded hardware for concurrency. A comprehensive set of multimedia baseline features is provided standard with the Snapdragon platform, and the Hexagon Access Program enables the customization and augmentation of the baseline feature sets and usage models included on Snapdragon processors.
“Qualcomm is committed to providing unparalleled usability for our customers,” said Raj Talluri, senior vice president of product management at Qualcomm. “The expansion of the Hexagon Access Program gives added support and resources to the Snapdragon ecosystem. Qualcomm is enabling power-competitive designs with differentiated multimedia features and customization of multimedia end-use cases via our highly efficient Hexagon DSP technology.”
Previously offered solely on the Snapdragon S3 MSM8660 platform, the Hexagon Access Program now includes select Snapdragon S4 processors, including the APQ8064, MPQ8064, MSM8960, APQ8060A, MSM8260A, MSM8660A, MSM8930, APQ8030, MSM8630, MSM8230, MSM8227 and MSM8627. Both OEMs and ISVs can optimize the features and performance of their multimedia software for execution on the fully integrated audio-video acceleration hardware in Snapdragon processors. Program participants will have access to software development tools that the OEM or ISV can utilize to compile or hand-code their proprietary algorithms. These tools are provided to assist OEMs and ISVs with their audio and video programming on supported processors.
Current ISV participants in Qualcomm’s Hexagon Access Program include: Berkeley Design Technology Inc. (BDTI), Bsquare, Mentor Graphics, Nextreaming, NXP Software, Qsound, SRS Labs, TATA ELXSI and Waves Audio.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon processors that are supported via a Hexagon DSP Tools Suite and via software and documentation as part of the Hexagon DSP Access Program are available to OEMs and ISVs now. For more information on access to Hexagon programming tools and optional hardware development boards and documentation for the customization of multimedia on these processors, please visit developer.qualcomm.com.
Forums – Qualcomm’s DSP Access Program [Qualcomm Developer Network, June 27, 2011]
Get ready for programming on a Qualcomm digital signal processor (DSP), enabling your multimedia features for a large mobile handset market. For the first time Qualcomm is opening up a new programmable processor that software developers can use to accelerate their algorithms and offload the main applications processor. In this session targeted towards mobile software developers, we will introduce the program, go over the tools available, the chipsets supported and the timeline for availability. We will show how developers can add their own customizations to Qualcomm’s audio and video processing engines and enable device makers to better differentiate their smartphone and tablet devices by augmenting the Snapdragon platform’s multimedia suite.
Learn more by checking out the video from our Uplinq 2011 QDSP technical lecture [by Kuntal Sampat, the engineering lead for Qualcomm’s DSP Access Program – see also his slides in PDF].
[19:08] This section talks about how you can use the deliverables we will provide in the Open DSP program. Now just to give you an idea of what we
do with the DSP, when we supply our MSMs and our SW to the OEM. The DSP is not blank. It is doing something and this is what it is doing. The DSP is actually running the voice codecs part of the voice call. [19:41] … [19:54] Same thing for the audio.
…. [21:04] As Qualcomm moves to its next-generation of chipsets we will probably see more functionality coming to the DSP, more than just audio. [21:17]
Qualcomm’s DSP Access Program Debuts [Qualcomm Developer Network press release, March 21, 2011]
Program Enables Manufacturers (OEMs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to Optimize Multimedia Solutions Utilizing Qualcomm Audio and Video Acceleration Hardware
SAN DIEGO — March 22, 2011 — Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced that OEMs and ISVs will now be able to program their own audio and video codecs using optimized processors and hardware on select versions of Qualcomm’s Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) chipsets through the new Qualcomm Developer Network DSP Access Program. This allows OEMs to better differentiate their smartphone and tablet devices by augmenting or modifying the Snapdragon™ platform’s multimedia suite with their own features or procure differentiated features directly from ISVs.
Both OEMs and ISVs can optimize the features and performance of their multimedia software for execution on Qualcomm chipset audio-video acceleration hardware. Qualcomm will offer software development tools that the OEM or ISV can utilize to compile (C/C++) or hand-code (assembly) their proprietary algorithms on Qualcomm’s optimized audio-video processor architectures. These tools are provided with training and support documentation to assist OEMs and ISVs with their audio/video programming on supported chipsets. Additional details on the Qualcomm Developer Network DSP Access Program are available on the Qualcomm Developer Network (http://developer.qualcomm.com/multimedia).
“Our customers and developers can increase the differentiation of their products on select Qualcomm chipsets by offering new and unique multimedia features and/or customization of the priority and concurrency of their multimedia features,” said Steven Brightfield, director of product management at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “Access to our audio and video acceleration hardware enables OEMs and ISVs to give end users access to a wider range of multimedia content and a richer multimedia experience on their mobile devices.”
The Qualcomm chipsets that will be supported via tools and documentation as part of the Qualcomm Developer Network DSP Access Program are the MSM8x60™, MSM8960™, MSM8270™, MSM8x55™, MSM7x27™ and MSM7x30™. For additional information and inquiries on access to programming tools and hardware documentation for the multimedia acceleration subsystems on these chipsets please inquire on the Qualcomm Developer Network (http://developer.qualcomm.com/multimedia).
Why mobile developers should care about the hardware [Qualcomm Developer Network, Aug 4, 2010]
In today’s crowded apps marketplace, it can sometimes be difficult for your apps to stand out. So as a developer, how can you make your apps stand out from the crowd? Certainly well-known IPs such as Tetris or PAC-MAN don’t really need help. But for most games and apps out there, there’s a good chance that a better understanding of the underlying hardware can help you optimize and differentiate your premium apps for an even greater payoff.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform offers an unprecedented combination of processing performance and optimized power consumption for the next generation of smart mobile devices. Because Snapdragon chipsets combine the CPU, GPU, connectivity, memory, GPS, and high performance multimedia capabilities into a powerfully integrated platform, building your applications for Qualcomm-based devices can help you take advantage of these optimized chipset features to create innovative, premium applications and content.
For example, you can use our hardware accelerated codecs to improve app performance and power consumption, or use the dedicated 2D hardware using OpenVG, allowing higher graphics quality. These are just a few examples of how you can take advantage of the hardware to differentiate your app. To learn more, download the whitepaper “Why Should Mobile Developers Care About the Hardware.”
For developers who want early access to Qualcomm-powered devices, you’ll be glad to hear that you can now pre-order the Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform online. With this development platform, you can begin developing your apps before commercial devices become available thus maximizing your revenue potential. Some of the key technical specs of the MSM8655-based Snapdragon MDP are:
1 GHz CPU
3.8” WVGA
HDMI port
Multi-touch capacitive touch screen
Adreno 205 GPU
12 –megapixel camera
720-pixel HD video decode and encode
Stereo 16mm loudspeakers
512 MB of RAM (2x 32b ports)
4GB on-board Flash
So get started. If you have an application worth showcasing, tell us about it.
Why Should Mobile Developers Care About the Hardware? [Qualcomm whitepaper, April 2, 2010, modified Sep 28, 2012 with new agreement included]:
hardware-based 3D audio effects solutions by taking advantage of embedded digital signal processors (DSPs) which provide greater user experiences
Qualcomm’s integrated chipset solutions (i.e. Snapdragon platform) address audio performance challenges head-on, by enabling developers to take advantage of embedded digital signal processors (DSPs), which provide greater user experiences. For example, many applications like mobile games play multiple sounds simultaneously such as, the playing of background music tracks while sound effects are trigged in the foreground (i.e. referred to as audio layering). Since the decoding of MP3 streams is already accomplished in the DSP, it’s a natural fit to mix multiple audio streams in the hardware.
This enhanced audio functionality enables developers to implement their entire audio path at higher sampling rates than a software mixer could process, thereby yielding higher quality audio outputs. Moreover, by leveraging DSP decoder functionality, source audio streams can be encoded as AAC instead of MP3, resulting in smaller file sizes. These smaller AAC files further benefit developers by providing a reduction of bandwidth in applications where the files are transferred over the air, thereby enabling a better user experience.
Presently, developers utilize graphic hardware solutions to give games and UIs the third dimension of depth. Dimension of depth functionality is achievable with audio through Qualcomm’s QAudioFX™ 3D positional engine.
Developers designing applications around 3D positional audio solutions from the start (i.e. such as first-person games etc), will benefit greatly from the added dimensional depth QAudioFX will provide. For example, audio gaming cues placed around the user will signal a car passing from behind, or an enemy approaching from the side, long before they appear on the device screen. These types of enhanced audio functionalities enable developers to vastly increase the user’s 3D environment. Moreover, since the QAudioFX engine will be implemented in the DSP, developers incur little penalty in incorporating 3D positional audio functionality. Currently, QAudioFX and related features are not available to the developers. It is planned to be supported on devices in the later part of 2010.
Developers can also look forward to taking advantage of QAudioFX’s reverberation engine capabilities. One challenge developer’s face in working with quality reverb algorithms is that they require a significant amount of memory for delay buffers. Qualcomm’s DSP-based audio solution allocates delay buffers in the hardware, thereby freeing up memory for the application. For example, in a racing game, rather than switching sound files when the vehicle enters a tunnel, developers can make a single API call to enable reverb. Another API call allows the developer to disable the reverb when the vehicle exits the tunnel.
Developers desiring music functionality in their applications can leverage CMX™, Qualcomm’s DSP-based MIDI synthesizer. Genuinely, realistic sounding instruments require a synthesizer with many articulators and a wavetable with large samples. While equivalent software synthesizers may be realized on today’s mobile processors, they come with a price namely, greater cycle and power consumption requirements. Qualcomm’s CMX solution output quality rivals PC sound cards, to the extent that developers may want to revisit MIDI in situations where they need to minimize audio file sizes. The hardware accelerated CMX capabilities are currently available on BREW platforms. Other high-level operating systems have similar MIDI capabilities but are enabled though software solutions.
Hardware-based 3D audio effects solutions by Qualcomm will provide powerful differentiating performance advantages for developers seeking a competitive edge in creating applications that contain a greater immersive user experience.
…
DSP History [by Will Strauss of Forward Concepts, May 2009]
This history of digital signal processing was originally written by Will Strauss of Forward Concepts and published in May, 2009 as part of a market study, “DSP SILICON STRATEGIES ’09.” ©2009 Forward Concepts Co. Permission to use excerpts of this history is granted as long as proper attribution is included.
1. DSP History
The earliest record of digital filtering techniques (albeit on paper) was in solving problems of astronomy and the compilation of mathematical tables in the early 1600s. The great mathematician Laplace (c.1779) understood the “z-transform,” the mathematical basis of modern digital signal processing.
During the Great Depression of the ’30s, the U.S. Bureau of Standards retained its surplus employees and set them to developing a variety of mathematical tools. Perhaps the most useful of these was a technique to evaluate the Fourier transform from a number of discrete data points, and using only multiplications and additions.
This Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) technique lay dormant for a number of years before sampled-data control systems came into common usage. It was then realized that the Bureau’s technique could be directly applied to analyzing the frequency makeup (or spectral content) in these systems, and further, that this technique was ideal for use with computers, and later, digital signal processors. The successor to the DFT, the Fast Fourier Transform, or FFT, is a basic DSP algorithm employed in all forms of spectral analysis from seismic data processing and radar image processing to MP3 audio compression and Wi-Fi, DSL and WiMAX communication, and soon 4th-generation cellular (LTE).
In the early ’70s, scientists were beginning to use off-the-shelf TTL (transistor-transistor-logic) discrete logic chips to implement specialized DSP “engines.” The first systems were relatively slow and consumed lots of space, but the second generation of IC implementations (c.1974) began to use bit-slice logic, like Advanced Micro Devices’ Am2901 TTL 4-bit arithmetic logic unit (ALU). In 1973, TRW bid a military project with the first practical parallel multiplier designs for use with bit-slice ALUs and shipped the first working parts in 1975. But, at several hundred dollars just for the multiplier chip, only the military and government laboratories could afford the approach.
Originally used for implementing “super” minicomputers, the Am2901 found application as the heart of Digital Equipment Corporation’s DECsystem 2020, Data General’s Nova 4 and other mid-sized computer systems of the day. The 2901 and associated chips (consisting of address generators, carry look-ahead logic, program sequencers and fast multipliers—along with memory and I/O circuitry) constituted a basic “building-block” approach to implementing a fast digital signal processor.
In the late ’70s, some of the first commercial applications of DSP used the Am2901 chip family to implement array processors for medical diagnostic equipment like CT (computer tomography) scanners and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR, now called magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI) systems. The high sales price of such systems justified the high cost of the building-block DSP technology.
For military applications, like radar image processing, the building-block approach proved to be ideal. Because little else was available, the 2901 family chips (and its successors) were also applied to other military DSP programs, such as sonar. Although other IC houses made their own bit-slice chips (and sequencers, etc.), the 290x family architecture has become obsolete (though later implemented as CMOS data-path elements in several ASIC libraries).
Probably the first single-chip implementation of a DSP algorithm was the TMS280 (later renamed the 281A) chip in Texas Instrument’s Speak & Spell™ learning aid introduced in 1978. Implementing Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) for speech synthesis, the device was not programmable, but was controlled by a separate microprocessor (TMS370) and a large ROM containing the library of digitized words. All three chips were implemented in PMOS dynamic logic. The Speak & Spell design team was headed by Gene Frantz (now a TI Principal Fellow). The idea for the product came from Frantz’ boss at the time, Paul Breedlove, who came up with the idea through a series of brainstorming sessions on how to use a hot technology of the day…bubble memories.
This was clearly a consumer product, a chip that retailed for $49.95 (instead of TI’s design goal of $29.95), rather than the thousands of dollars inherent in earlier military implementations. Speak & Spell was such a wild success that TI couldn’t meet demand, so it kept raising the price. However, it proved the commercial viability of DSP technology in a consumer product.
In 1978, American Microsystems Inc. (AMI) announced the first programmable integrated circuit designed specifically for digital signal processing, the 12-bit S2811, designed by Dick Blasco and his group under the direction of Bill Nicholson. Although of truly innovative circuit design, the chip was implemented in a radical “V-groove” MOS technology and never yielded volume commercial products.
Although AMI was the first to announce a single-chip DSP, Intel Corporation was the first company to actually begin shipping a product. In 1979, Intel introduced the Intel 2920 DSP chip, designed by Marcian (Ted) Hoff (famous for invention of what some count as the first single-chip MPU, the Intel 4004). Designed as a “drop-in” analog circuit replacement, complete with on-board A/D and D/A converters, the chip was called an “analog signal processor” by Intel; after all, it (digitally) processed analog signals. The 2920 did not have a parallel multiplier and was too slow (with a 600 ns cycle time) to perform useful work in the audio spectrum—where the initial high-volume DSP chip market was to eventually materialize. After lack of success elsewhere, the second wafer lot was sold out to U.S. Robotics for use in then-current 300 bps modems as adaptive equalizers. Although the 2920 was unsuccessful, Intel did not capitalize on the fact that (with the on-board A/D & D/A converters) this was the first single-chip codec—for which, Intel was awarded the patent.
It was in 1980 that NEC announced the first practical programmable single-chip DSP for the merchant market, the 16-bitµPD7720. Although hampered by primitive development tools, the 122-ns NMOS chip had a (two-cycle) on-chip parallel multiplier which was fast enough to perform useful “work” in the audio spectrum.
This began the first generation of “true” DSP chips, most based on the “Harvard” architecture which employs separate data and memory buses for better real-time operation. In the same year, AT&T’s Bell Laboratories introduced the DSP-1, which also had an on-chip parallel multiplier. But the chip was intended for captive use by AT&T’s manufacturing arm, Western Electric Company. Consequently, NEC was the first merchant market vendor of a practical DSP chip.
In 1979, Ed Caudell of Texas Instruments designed the initial architecture of what was later to become TI’s first DSP chip. Caudell was earlier involved in designing TI’s very popular TMS1000 8-bit MCU. The effort was under TI’s Microprocessor Microcomputer Products (MMP) group headed by Wally Rhines (now CEO of Mentor Graphics) and Jerry Rogers (MMP Design Manager). Known as the Signal Processing Computer (SPC) Program, John Hughes was the Program Manager and Tony Leigh was the Design Manager. Dr. Surendar Magar was hired in 1980 to optimize the SPC architecture around DSP algorithms. Dr. Magar’s Ph.D. was in Signal Processing and had been working for Plessey in the U.K. Soon after joining TI, Dr. Magar recommended the inclusion of a hardware multiplier, which was not in the original SPC specification. Wanda Gass (nee English) joined Magar as a key Design Engineer along with others and the full logic was complete by the end of 1980.
The resulting design was implemented in 3.0 um NMOS and introduced to the world in February, 1982 through Dr. Magar’s classic ISSCC (International Solid State Circuits Conference) paper. The final product, the TMS32010, was announced by Caudell in April, 1982 at the Paris, France ICASSP (International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing). The TMS32010 went into production in 1983 and the DSP Group at that time was headed by Dave French (later VP at Analog Devices Inc. and then CEO of Cirrus Logic Inc.).
TI’s early recognition of the potential of DSP carried it through seven years of “missionary” work before a profit was turned, and by then others realized that it was a market ripe for growth. Three other major semiconductor companies then joined TI and NEC in the programmable DSP chip market: AT&T Microelectronics (later Agere Systems, then merged with LSI Logic to become part of LSI Corp.), Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector (now Freescale Semiconductor) and Analog Devices Inc. Today, there are many other semiconductor houses that employ DSP technology in their products, but for the most part, those chips are not programmable by the user.
First-generation chips generally lacked parallelism, since at least two processor cycles were required to perform a complete multiply-accumulate (MAC) function, and limited on-chip memory required expensive (in terms of real estate and added memory) additions for most applications. The more primitive “engines” of the day (like conventional MCUs) required as many as 60 clock cycles to perform a multiply-accumulate operation.
Other chips offered to the market in this first-generation era were the ITT UDPI-01 (the first announced CMOS single-chip DSP, which never reached the sampling stage) and the Hitachi HD61810, another CMOS chip which saw mostly internal company use.
The most striking improvement in second-generation DSP chips was in the implementation of a single-cycle multiplier-accumulator (MAC), effectively doubling the bandwidth capability of the chips. Direct memory access (DMA) emerged as a way to quickly load new algorithms into the DSP chip. Enhancements to first-generation chips added serial communication ports and timers, and interrupt capability began to emerge for control applications. DSP instruction sets became richer, with event control capability, which further broadened chip utility—allowing true stand-alone capability for many more implementations.
The Fujitsu MB8764 (announced in 1983) was the first of this genre, followed by the TI TMS32020 (in 1985). The TMS32020 was the result of collaborative design efforts between Texas Instruments and their customer, ITT Corp. (then International Telephone and Telegraph Corp.). Dr. Surendar Magar of TI and Dr. Kristine Kneib of ITT were the principal architects of the -020.
Other single-chip DSPs were announced in this second-generation era by Toshiba (T6386/7), STC (DSP-128) and Matsushita (MN1901/9), but they were never successful in the merchant market. (The DSP-128 never sampled, according to our information.) During this time, AT&T continued internal DSP development with the DSP-2 chip. Thomson (now STMicroelectronics) introduced the ST68930/31 in 1986, but confined most marketing efforts to Europe.
Texas Instruments licensed the NMOS 32020 architecture to General Instrument Microelectronics (now Microchip Technology). GI moved the NMOS design into CMOS and in turn provided it back to TI which resulted in TI’s first CMOS DSP chip, the TMS320C25. The new chip was designed in Japan and principal designer of the -C25 was Takashi Takamizawa, later to become TI’s DSP Business Manager in Japan.
The first floating-point DSP chip from a major vendor reluctantly made it to market in this era. AT&T introduced itsDSP32 for internal use at 8 MFLOPS in 1984 and began to sell its DSP32 to the merchant market in July, 1986. Thrust into the merchant world by the divestiture of the Bell operating companies, AT&T did not have cohesive DSP-chip marketing direction until late 1987, when the company realized that their first integer DSP chip, the (third-generation-design) 18.2 MIPS DSP-16, could make the company a credible force in the merchant market.
The period of the third generation became the “glory years” for DSP volume shipments by TI, which had captured over 60% of the world single-chip DSP market by 1986. Third-generation changes centered mainly on reconfigurable memory, with flexibility of on- and off-chip memory that could be variously configured for program, data, or coefficients. The degree of parallelism increased even further, with as many as three operations performed in a single clock cycle. Further-expanded instruction sets became evident. In late 1986, Zoran Corp. introduced the first single-chip DSP with CISC-like vector instructions to efficiently perform FFT functions for military applications.
Analog Devices introduced the ADSP-2100 chip, which was unique in that it had a 24-bit instruction word, 16-bit data paths, and had no on-board memory. But, it was designed to access two words of external data on every cycle and had an instruction set optimized to perform FFTs and zero-overhead loops. The ADSP-2100 and its faster successor, the ADSP-2100A, found heavy use in military and imaging applications, while newer members of the family, the ADSP-2101 and ADSP-2105 (both with on-board memory) saw a wider variety of applications.
The Motorola 56000 family of 24-bit chips (for both instructions and data paths) was the first integer DSP optimized for high-fidelity audio applications, and found early acceptance in professional audio processing and music synthesis. Other third-generation integer DSP chips included those from AT&T (the DSP-16A at 40 MIPS by 1988), Hitachi (the DSP-I, sold only in Japan) and TI (TMS320C50).
Coincident with the era of the third-generation of integer DSP chips, additional first-generation floating-point DSP chips were announced, including improved units from AT&T (the 25 MFLOP CMOS DSP32C was announced in 1987), Texas Instruments (TMS320C30), Zoran (ZR34325), Fujitsu (MB86232), STMicroelectronics (ST18940/41), NEC (µPD77230) and Oki (MSM699210).
The emergence of a fourth generation of DSP chips was heralded by announcements made in the early ’90s. Several fourth-generation integer DSP chips were characterized by on-chip codec circuitry, like Motorola’s DSP56156.
As the fourth generation evolved, geometries progressed to submicron (0.8 µm) levels and multiply-accumulate times continued to fall. Additional CISC instructions to accommodate key algorithms became evident for some chip designs.
Second-generation floating-point chips emerged coincident with the introduction of fourth-generation integer chips: AT&T’s DSP3210, Motorola’s DSP-96002, NEC’s µPD77240, TI’s TMS320C40, and somewhat later, Analog Devices’ ADSP-21020.
The fifth generation of DSP chips began in 1994 with the Texas Instruments’ TMS320C54xx family. Introduced with a 20ns (50 MIPS) speed, it was TI’s first chip with a Viterbi accelerator, and the successor to its popular C25 and C50 families. With the accelerator, the chip was clearly intended for communication applications (like modems).
But, from a public relations standpoint, the C54 family was overshadowed by the 1985 sampling of TI’s TMS320C80(earlier termed a Multimedia Video Processor—MVP). The C80 consisted of four 64-bit DSP cores along with a 32-bit RISC core. A less-capable, but cheaper version, the C82, was introduced with two DSP cores and the RISC core. Although an extremely powerful chip family, the C80’s programming complexity confined the bulk of its applications to sophisticated image processing, and the chip never achieved general industry acceptance.
Motorola Semiconductor’s Data Communications Operation melded its DSP56002 DSP core with a 68302 microprocessor (MPU) core on the same die, the M68356 “Signal Processing Communications Engine.” In a similar pairing, TI joined its C54 core with an ARM RISC core on a single die and found success in tens of millions digital cellphones.
Although multiple-MAC designs were earlier available on specialized 8-bit video filter chips like the Inmos (acquired by STMicroelectronics) A121 and Zoran ZR33881, 16-bit programmable DSPs also began taking on multiple MACs late in this generation. Half-micron geometries led to sub-20 ns multiply-accumulate times—across several MACs or several DSP cores, leading to substantially higher bandwidth capability.
Continued improvements of second-generation floating-point DSP chips were introduced coincident with the fifth generation of fixed-point chips. Texas Instruments introduced the TMS320C32 and TMS320C44 chips, while Analog Devices introduced the ADSP-21060 SHARC™ (Super Harvard Architecture Computer).
The late-‘90s era of 0.35 um CMOS geometries saw the first introductions of VLIW and superscalar architectures for DSP.
Texas Instruments’ TMS320C6201 was the first user-programmable VLIW DSP chip available. Employing eight ALUs, two of which had MACs, the ‘C62 was initially capable of executing 1,600 raw MIPS and 400 DSP MIPS (MMACS) at 200 MHz. The VLIW approach requires an optimizing C-language compiler, and TI invested heavily in developing an efficient compiler. Until the family later moved to 0.18 um geometries, power consumption was a problem. The ‘C62x family was announced in February 1997 and began to ship in moderate volumes in Q1/98.
Lucent Technologies (later Agere Systems) introduced the DSP16000 family of 16-bit DSPs which featured dual ALUs and dual MACs. The 16000 was optimized for low power consumption and for bank speech coding applications such as required in cellular base stations or Internet Protocol (IP) telephony gateways. Initially rated at 400 MIPS (@200 MHz), the 16000 could go head-to-head with TI’s C62x family in applications where there was no need for the extra (non-DSP) MIPS provided by the TI chip. The DSP16000 began sampling in November 1997 and in 1998, Lucent began shipping the DSP16410, a chip consisting of two 16000 cores on a die. The DSP16410 has been a favorite in GSM cellular base station implementations.
In 1998, a startup company, ZSP Corporation, began sampling its ZSP16400 family of DSPs, which like the Lucent product, had dual ALUs and dual MACs. However, the ZSP family was based on a 4-issue superscalar architecture and employed a different (proprietary) approach to feeding data to multiple MACs. Initially rated at 400 MIPS (@200 MHz),the ZSP design was acquired by LSI Logic Corp. in mid-1999, and volume shipments of the renamed ZSP400 family began in Q3/99. LSI Logic sold both ZSP chips and licensed ZSP cores to a number of companies. The ZSP chip operations were sold in mid-2006 by LSI Logic to Verisilicon Corp., which has since expanded the product offerings.
Third-generation floating-point chipsemerged in this time frame, beginning with TI’s C67x family based on the VLIW architecture of the fixed-point C62x family. The family is source-code compatible with the C62x and started with a 1-GOPS version. Analog Devices announced its own dual-ALU/dual-MAC product, the floating-point ADSP21100(“Hammerhead”) family, which was code-compatible with its ADSP21000 (SHARC) family of products. Sampling began in Q4/99. Because of its code compatibility, the Hammerhead presented an instant upgrade for existing sockets.
In 2001, TI introduced a formal pairing of its C55-family DSP core and ARM900-family RISC cores on a single die, formalized as its OMAP™ product family (said to have evolved from Open Multimedia Applications Processor). For reasons explained later in this report, the pairing of DSP and RISC, rather than a single processor architecture for both, has considerable merit in many applications.
By 2003, 0.15 um DSP chips became commonplace and 0.13 um chips were in volume production. And DSP cores become an ever smaller percentage of the die area as peripherals and (mostly) on-board memory begin to dominate the silicon die.
9. THE CURRENT DSP CROP [c.2009]
By early 2007, 65-nm versions of Texas Instruments’ C55 family were shipping in volume as part of the OMAP™ family, which became the market leader due to its deployment in hundreds of millions of cellphones, annually. But, the company’s 1-GHz C64 VLIW became TI’s flagship “catalog” product. One member of the C64 family includes both Viterbi and turbocoding accelerators, clearly targeting the cellular base station market. The C64 family has since been expanded to three or more cores on a single die, again addressing the base station market. Other C64 implementations employ MPEG4 and graphics accelerators for video multimedia applications, under the DaVinci™ family name.
Motorola has fielded its MSC8144 chip, successor to those first announced in Q4/01. Based on four StarCore VLIW cores (each with four ALUs & MACs) and 11.5 Mbits of on-chip memory, the earlier MSC8122 chip was originally introduced at 300 MHz, but the successor MSC8144 is now shipping at over 1GHz, and at introduction was rated by Berkeley Design Technology Inc. (BDTI) as the fastest available DSP processor, even as a single-chip implementation.
Formally announced in Q3/01, Analog Devices’ TigerSHARC™, a floating-point VLIW design, was also targeted (unsuccessfully) for the cellular base station market. Uniquely, in addition to traditional “symbol-rate” baseband processing, the chip can also perform high-speed “chip-rate” signal processing functions (required for CDMA cellular operation) that competitors generally assign to ASIC or FPGA implementations. The chip provided a significant jump in performance over the earlier Hammerhead, but it is not code compatible with the ADSP21000 product family, so new tools were required to develop products based on the higher performance product.
In a similar vein, Analog Devices introduced the fixed-point Blackfin™ DSP family, based on the “Frio” core jointly developed with Intel Corporation. The first chip (the ADI21535) was announced in mid-2001 at a 300MHz clock rate. It was priced at $27 @10K units. The initial superscalar design employed two 16-bit MACs and two 40-bit ALUs and four 8-bit video ALUs, clearly targeting multimedia applications. By mid-2003, the chip family began sampling at 600 MHz (1.2 GMACS), and is currently available at 750 MHz. The architecture is said to scale to at least 1GHz, a speed that ADI’s older 219x devices would be unlikely to achieve. As with the TigerSHARC, it is not code compatible with the earlier 2100 family devices, so the company has developed new tools to support the new architecture. However, with the 300 MHz version later priced at $4.95 @10K units, the chip achieved strong early market attention.
Intel chose to employ the Frio core in SoC (System on Chip) products under its PCA (Personal Internet Communications Architecture) banner. Rather than use the DSP nomenclature (a term which they equate to TI), Intel chose to call the Frio technology “Micro Signal Architecture.” The Frio architecture became part of Intel’s cellular baseband chip, code-named “Hermon” (after Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in Israel), which (along with Intel’s XScale RISC product line) was sold to Marvell Semiconductor in late 2006. Marvell has since expanded on the initial architecture, now offering a cellular baseband chip code-named “Tavor” (after the second highest mountain in Israel). Tavor found a home in RIM’s Blackberry “Bold” 3G cellphone introduced in late 2008.
Agere Systems introduced (Q2/03) the DSP16411, a 0.13 um successor to the earlier (Lucent) DSP16410 that has been popular in GSM base stations. Clearly, the faster, and code-compatible, 16411 is a natural for retrofitting GSM base stations to GPRS capability. The operation became a division of LSI Corp. shipping its Trident HP chip based on its workhorse DSP16000 and ARM7TDMI cores for the GSM/GPRS/EDGE cellphone market. The cellphone chip operation was later sold to Infineon, but LSI Corp. continues serving the cellular base station market with its Starpro line of multicore chips based on the StarCore DSP core jointly developed with (then) Motorola’s Semiconductor Division.
VeriSilicon now offers its new ZSP600 family as licensed cores. Based on a 6-issue superscalar architecture with 4 MACs running at up to 300 MHz in 0.13um CMOS, the chip occupies a unique niche. Although earlier designs, like the ZSP400 and ZSP500 were also sold as chips by LSI Logic, VeriSilicon only licenses the IP, in addition to applying the cores in its own ASIC chip designs.
The designs of programmable DSP chips continue to evolve, with VLIW becoming the base architecture of choice for most of the highest performance discrete chips. But all discrete DSP chip vendors are now treating their basic engines as ASIC cores, as central elements in an ASSP (application-specific standard product), like a digital still camera chip, or for a customer-specific (usually high-volume) design like a cellphone baseband chip.
Another clear trend is that of licensable RISC cores have evolved to incorporate ever-increasing DSP functionality, either through customizable instruction set architectures or through the addition of SIMD augmentation.
The trend toward ASSPs for vertical markets, like cellphones, cameras and personal media players continues, with off-the-shelf discrete DSPs becoming a diminishing percentage of the (still-growing) DSP-centric silicon market.
Qualcomm moving ahead of Allwinner et al. in CPU and GPU while trying to catch up with Allwinner in Ultra HD
[Updated June 20, 2013] According to Qualcomm Expands Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 Processor Tier [press release, June 20, 2013] the entry-level S200 with quad-core Cortex-A5 @1.4GHz and Adreno 203 GPU manufacture on a 45nm proces will be expanded late 2013 (together with Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) versions) Cortex-A7 @1.2GHz and Adreno 305 based SoCs: the MSM8x10 (8210, 8610) dual-core and MSM8x12 (8212, 8612) quad-core versions. They will feature key modem technologies that are important in China and emerging regions, including support for HSPA+ (up to 21Mbps) and TD-SCDMA. The processors will have support for dual cameras, with an 8 Megapixel rear-facing camera and up to a 5 Megapixel front-facing one, as well as feature a single platform for all SIM variants, including Dual SIM, Dual Standby, and Dual SIM, Dual Active, and Tri SIM Tri Standby.
The latest additions to the Snapdragon 200 class also feature: integrated industry-leading IZat Location functionality and support of Qualcomm Quick Charge 1.0; support for the latest Android, Windows Phone and Firefox operating systems; RxD support; and a single, multimode modem enabling faster data rates, fewer dropped calls, and better connections.
[Updated Feb 27, 2013] The ”Allwinner phenomenon” coming from nowhere in 2012 is threatening all established players in the SoC industry, even the industry’s undisputed leader Qualcomm. This was the reason why Qualcomm was forced to strengthen its Cortex based S4 Play class ahead of time already twice in the recent months, and came the time to announce its next-gen Krait microarchitectures with significantly enhanced GPU and video processing unit capabilities.
In fact it was necessary to introduce two microarchitecture steps at once: Krait 300 and Krait 400. Even the SoC classification was further changed with the corresponding S600 (for mid-high tier smartphones and tablets) and S800 (for premium smartphones, Smart TVs, digital media adapters and tablets) “processor brand tiers” while the company was yet unable to decide how the existing S4 Play, S4 Plus and S4 Pro classes, introduced just in August 2011, should be transformed into the new S200 (for entry level smartphones) and S400 (for high volume smartphones and tablets) “processor brand tiers” in order to remain competitive. While Qualcomm will undoubtebly be able to defend its SoC leadership position with the announcements already made there will be even bigger trouble for the already ailing giant with Intel’s biggest flop: at least 3-month delay in delivering the power management solution for its first tablet SoC [this same ‘Experiencing the Cloud’ blog, Dec 20, 2012].
Update: Qualcomm Snapdragon 200, 400, 600 and 800 at Mobile World Congress 2013 [Charbax YouTube channel, Feb 27, 2013]
Update: Qualcomm Reveals the Snapdragon™ 400 and 200 Processors [OnQ Blog by Qualcomm, Feb 20, 2013] the essence of which I will include into the updated table below in order to make it easy to compare with everything introduced earlier by Qualcomm in the new “Krait era” of Snapdragon SoCs:
Update: LG Optimus G Pro, 5.5″ 1080p IPS display, 1.7Ghz Qualcomm S600
[Charbax YouTube channel, Feb 26, 2013] a full HD (1080p) LTE device said to be “available in Q1 in globally selected markets” [4:11-4:18]
More information: OPTIMUS G PRO, LG’S FIRST FULL HD SMARTPHONE, LAUNCHES THIS WEEK IN KOREA [LG Electronics press release Feb 18, 2013]
Update: HTC One announced with UltraPixel camera, 4.7-inch display and Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor [BGRIndia YouTube channel, Feb20, 2013] to be available in March worldwide
More information: Ubuntu and HTC in lockstep [‘Experiencing the Cloud’ blog, Feb 19, 2013]
Update: Snapdragon 400 as now defined by Qualcomm (see MSM 8230 under the S400 in the above table) came first to the market with the Huawei Ascend W1 introduced at CES 2013. See Huawei Device – The Stage is Yours with the Ascend W1 [HuaweiDeviceCo YouTube channel, Jan 8, 2013]
This device is also The first Windows Phone 4Afrika from Huawei for $150 = Huawei Ascend W1 for $240 (in China) and more elsewhere [Feb 5, 2013], and as such it is part of the Microsoft’s 4Afrika Initiative [Videos4Afrika YouTube channel, Feb 5, 2013]
Update: The All-New Snapdragon 800 Series [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, Jan 24, 2013] for which devices were said to be available in the middle of 2013
End of updates
Here is the January 2013 SoC lineup for Qualcomm as per the new announcements at CES 2013:
Compiled from previous and current (see below) Snapdragon announcements from Qualcomm. The previous announcements were described in the following posts on this blog:
– Qualcomm quad-core Cortex-A7 SoCs with Adreno 305 and 1080p coming for the high-volume global market and China [Dec 9, 2012]
– Qualcomm decided to compete with the existing Cortex-A5/Krait-based offerings till the end of 2012 [Sept 30 – Dec 7, 2012]
– Next-gen Snapdragon S4 class SoCs — exploiting TSMC’s 28nm process first — coming in December [Aug 9 – Nov 25, 2011]
– Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs with a new way of easy identification [Aug 4 – Nov 16, 2011]
See also the post which described the availability problem of the company in 2012:
– Qualcomm’s critical reliance on supply constrained 28nm foundry capacity [July 27 – Nov 13, 2012]
Paul Jacobs Demos the new 800 Series Snapdragon Processors [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, Jan 9, 2013]
Which you should put into an overall context of new opportunities as it is presented in:
– Highlights from the 2013 Qualcomm CES Born Mobile Keynote [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, Jan 10, 2013]
– New Qualcomm Snapdragon Processor Brand Tiers Announced [OnQ Blog, Jan 7, 2013]
Today Qualcomm Technologies is introducing new names and tiers for the upcoming 2013 line of Snapdragon(TM) processors. You probably became acquainted with the Snapdragon processor through smartphones and tablets, though the new line will expand into other consumer electronics.
The current Snapdragon processors are labeled S1, S2, S3 and S4 to reflect the processor generation. But as the processor roadmap has expanded to address additional segments of smartphones, tablets, compute devices and consumer electronics, so we are taking this opportunity to introduce a new tiered structure to the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor brand. There will be 4 tiers – Snapdragon 800, 600, 400 and 200 – to make it easy to distinguish the processor segmentation and to communicate the depth of Qualcomm Technologies’ processor portfolio.
Starting in 2013 and moving forward, processors will be categorized in the following tiers:
Snapdragon 800 Processors
Snapdragon 800 Processors are designed to deliver blazing fast apps and web browsing, visually stunning graphics, breakthrough multimedia capabilities, seamless communications virtually anytime, anywhere, and outstanding battery life for premium smartphones, Smart TVs, digital media adapters and tablets.
Snapdragon 600 Processors
Snapdragon 600 Processors are designed to deliver outstanding performance for today’s coolest apps, fast web browsing, seamless connectivity and great battery life for mid-high tier smartphones and tablets.
Snapdragon 400 Processors
Snapdragon 400 Processors are designed to deliver the performance, features, connectivity and battery life that consumers expect in high volume smartphones and tablets.
Snapdragon 200 Processors
Snapdragon 200 Processors are designed to deliver a valued balance of performance, robust connectivity and better battery life for entry level smartphones.
It’s important to state that the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor brand continues to stand for the same thing – mobility without compromise. Now new tiered brand structure makes it easy for customers and consumers to see that no matter what your style, device preference or budget, there’s a Snapdragon processor for you. And when a Snapdragon processor is at the heart of your device, you can do more and recharge less.
Click here for a deeper dive into the features and specifications of the new Snapdragon 800 and 600 Series.
– Qualcomm Announces Next Generation Snapdragon Premium Mobile Processors [Qualcomm press release, Jan 7, 2013]
New Snapdragon 800 and 600 Processors Represent a Significant Performance Leap For High-End Mobile Computing Devices
LAS VEGAS – January 07, 2013 – Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., is sampling the first products in its latest generation of processors. With the introduction of its newest Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 800 and 600 processors, Qualcomm continues to lead the industry by once again raising the bar on performance per watt and delivering unparalleled user experiences.
The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors target premium mobile and computing devices. They are designed to deliver outstanding overall user experience, expand the possibilities of seamless connected computing and enable brand new mobile experiences while maintaining industry-leading battery performance:
- The Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors will deliver up to 75 percent better performance than the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and the move to 28nm High Performance for mobile (HPm) technology node ensures exceptionally low power
- New Krait 400 CPU in quad configuration, with speeds of up to 2.3 GHz per core offers best-in-class performance per watt, so processor performance can hold up to the more demanding processing and communication requirements of premium mobile devices
- Additionally, asynchronous SMP architecture provides dynamic power sensing and control for peak performance per core, while extending battery life without the use of specialized cores
- New Adreno 330 GPU delivers more than 2x performance for compute applications over the current Adreno 320 GPU
- 2x32bit LP-DDR3 at 800MHz with industry-leading memory bandwidth of 12.8GBps
- New Hexagon DSP V5 delivers floating point support, dynamic multithreading and expanded multimedia instructions for enhanced low power performance
- New IZat™ location technology combines multiple tracking systems into a single high performance, highly accurate navigation platform for auto and pedestrian applications
- Seamless communications anytime, anywhere: Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors offer fully integrated connectivity and a wide variety of communication options.
- Third generation 4G LTE modem with data rates up to 150 Mbps (Category 4), fully integrated in the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors
- 4G LTE Advanced Carrier Aggregation feature to maximize radio frequency bandwidth
- World multimode and multi-band support using wafer level package (WTR1605)
- Integrated newest generation mobile Wi-Fi connectivity, 802.11ac
- Broad connectivity support with integrated USB 3.0, Bluetooth and FM
INSERT: Director Guillermo del Toro and Paul Jacobs Showcase Ultra HD [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, Jan 10, 2013]
Breakthrough multimedia experiences: The Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors also introduce the very latest mobile experiences.
- Capture, playback and display in UltraHD video (with four times 1080p pixel density)
- Dual Image Signal Processors (ISP) for Qualcomm Snapdragon Camera with support for computational camera
- HD multichannel audio with DTS-HD and Dolby Digital Plus for enhanced audio
- Higher display resolutions (up to 2560×2048) and Miracast 1080p HD support
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors are currently sampling and expected to be available in commercial devices by mid-year 2013.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor targets high-end mobile devices. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor is designed to deliver great performance, rich graphics and enhanced user experience and will deliver up to 40 percent better performance than the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor at lower power. The new processor offers system-wide architectural improvements, key component upgrades and expanded connectivity options. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor features a new Krait 300 quad-core CPU with speeds up to 1.9GHz, a new speed enhanced Adreno 320 GPU and support for LPDDR3 memory. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor is sampling now and is expected to be available in commercial devices by second quarter 2013.
“With the overwhelming success of our previous Qualcomm Snapdragon platforms, our mobile processors have emerged as the platform of choice for high-end mobile devices,” said Steve Mollenkopf, president and chief operating officer of Qualcomm. “With more than 50 design wins already secured with the first products of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 and 800 processors, we are advancing our vision and setting the standard for excellence in mobile computing.”
For more information and to see a demonstration of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors, as well as the newest devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, please visit Qualcomm during CES 2013 South Hall 3, Upper Level, Booth #30313), Jan. 8-11 in Las Vegas or visit www.qualcomm.com/snapdragon.
– Snapdragon 800 Series and 600 Processors Unveiled [OnQ Blog, Jan 7, 2013]
Earlier today we announced several new Snapdragon processors in our new Snapdragon 800 and 600 processors (you can read more about our new brand tiers here). Smartphones, tablets or any devices loaded with the latest Snapdragon processor will feel really fast and offer long battery and I’d like to take the opportunity to tell you more about our newest flagship processors.
The Snapdragon 600 Processors
Building on the momentum of our highly successful Snapdragon S4 Pro processor featured in such flagship devices like the Google Nexus 4 and the HTC Droid DNA, we have introduced the first Snapdragon 600 processor which will once again lead the industry in both performance and power efficiency. Inside of the Snapdragon 600 processor is an integrated system featuring our custom built CPU, GPU, and much more so you’ll our feel the Snapdragon experience—fast performance and great battery life. The new Snapdragon 600 processor includes the following features:
- Quad Core Krait 300 CPU—running at up to 1.9 GHz
- Adreno 320 GPU –offering over 3x the performance of A225 &, as the first GPU in the Adreno 300 series and introduces support for new mobile and GPGPU compute APIs such as OpenGL ES 3.0 , OpenCL and Renderscript Compute
- LPDDR3 RAM— (Low Power Double Data Rate 3) this faster RAM gives a speed boost to the channels which data flows. By increasing the speed at which the data flows to each component, performance is boosted throughout the entire processor.
- Overall Performance Boost—we expect the Snapdragon 600 processor to deliver up to 40% better performance than the Snapdragon S4 Pro processor.
Our first Snapdragon 600 processor is sampling now and expected to be available in commercial devices by second quarter 2013.
The Snapdragon 800 Processors
Fast on the heels of our first Snapdrgon 600 processor, we will once again reset the performance and power efficiency bar with the introduction of our flagship Snapdragon 800 processors. Inside these tiny processors are all of the leading technologies that you have come to expect from Qualcomm. And we continue to custom build these technologies in-house so they can be fully tailored and tightly integrated with the entire system. This level of customization enables the Snapdragon experience—stunning performance and extreme battery life. The Snapdragon 800 processors will enable the newest mobile experience with a cutting edge feature set that includes:
- Quad Core Krait 400 CPU—speeds up to 2.3 GHz, per core
- Adreno 330 GPU—featuring patented Flex Render Technology and leading edge API’s that are designed to expand the use of GPU processing for general computing and other SoC tasks, the Adreno 330 GPU offers a 2 times better compute performance than Adreno 320
- 2x32bit LPDDR3 RAM at 800MHz – with industry-leading memory bandwidth of 12.8GBps.
- 4G LTE Cat 4 and 802.11ac—these connectivity options offer blazing fast, seamless connectivity with cellular modem boasting data rates up to 150 Mbps and 802.11ac at speeds up to 1 Gbps.
- UltraHD—video can be captured, played back and displayed in UltraHD (previously called “4K.”) The resolution has four times as many pixels as 1080p. (1920x 1080 versus 4096 × 2304)
- HD Audio—support for DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus and 7.1 surround sound.
- Dual Image Signal Processors (ISPs) up to 55MP – with support for up to four cameras and allows for 3D captures, photo merging into a master 55MPixel image, separate autofocus and captures, 1080p30 video captures.
- Overall Performance Boost—the Snapdragon 800 processor is expected to deliver up to 75% better performance than the Snapdragon S4 Pro.
Not only will you see this Snapdragon 800 processor in mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, but it will be featured in computing and consumer electronic devices such as Smart TVs and digital media adapters. Snapdragon 800 processors are sampling now and expected to be available in commercial devices by mid-2013.
…
Raj Talluri Senior Vice President of Product Management, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies
Exynos 5 Octa, flexible display enhanced with Microsoft vision et al. from Samsung Components: the only valid future selling at CES 2013
[5:30 – 5:39] of the video embedded in ‘Details’ section below:
Samsung Components [the proper name is Device Solutions Division, Samsung Electronics]: a $16B operation just for Q3 2012 alone.
WTF are 8 cores for? How the mobile battery will cope with that? And the fundamental (technical only) answers to both questions (objections) are:
[24:00 – 24:50] of the video embedded in ‘Details’ section below:
demo and illustration of the big.LITTLE
Warren East, CEO, ARM:
[24:57] It is providing roughly twice the performance of today’s leading edge smartphones at half the power consumption when running common workloads [25:07]
Add here just the following illustration in order to avoid the (unfortunately) quite typical misunderstanding of having 8 core in Exynos 5 Octa, when in fact there are 4 cores used for different workloads:
WTF is a flexible display for?
[48:53 – 54:00] of the video embedded in ‘Details’ section below:
How Microsoft is using Samsung components to enhance their solutions, Eric Rudder, chief technical strategy officer, Microsoft:
[51:37] We actually have a prototype of Windows Phone and how would look on one of those screens [51:41]
…
[51:41] And Microsoft’s vision is that sensors like Kinect combined with flexible, transparent and projected displays will bring us to a point when any object can be a Surface and can be a computer. I’d like to close with a short video from Microsoft Research which extends interactivity to every surface in your living room. Last year you’ve may seen some videos with precomputed projections. What we’re demoing today is both real-time and fully interactive. And while you may find it hard to believe the footage shown here is exactly what’ve appeared in the lab without any special effects being added. Some companies talk about reality distortion field we’ve actually built one. [52:32]
[52:35 – 53:20] IllumiRoom Projects Images Beyond Your TV for an Immersive Gaming Experience [MicrosoftResearch YouTube channel, Jan 8, 2013]
[53:24] This is just a glimpse of what our future may hold in store for us. We’re excited that this technology can be used in many different ways: to enhance a TV or movie experience, or increase the reality of a flight simulator, or make educational scenarios more exciting. We look forward to our continued partnership with Samsung to deliver the next generation of devices and services. [53:49]
Details
<CES 2013 “warm-up” clips, worth to skip> [3:10]
<Gary Shapiro intro, might be skipped> [6:00]
Samsung Exynos 5 Octa & Flexible Display at CES 2013 Keynote [SamsungTomorrow YouTube channel, Jan 9, 2012]
Samsung Highlights Innovations in Mobile Experiences Driven by Components, in CES Keynote [Samsung press release, January 9, 2013]
Samsung’s President Introduces Broader Partnerships, New Products and the Possibilities They Enable
LAS VEGAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today redefined the story of consumer electronics from its perspective beneath the surface of mobile devices at the 2013 International CES keynote address.
“When you want multiple applications to perform at their best, you want the best application processor currently available—the Exynos 5 Octa.”
Dr. Stephen Woo, president of System LSI Business, Device Solutions Division, Samsung Electronics, shared the company’s vision of “Mobilizing Possibility,” highlighting the role of components as the engine behind innovation across the mobile landscape. The keynote event illustrated possibilities that Samsung envisions offering through its component solutions, and introduced new products that will herald such expectations.
“We believe the right component DNA drives the discovery of what’s possible,” said Woo. “Components are building blocks—the foundations on which devices are built. We at Samsung’s component solutions are creating new, game-changing components across all aspects of devices.”
Guests from partnering companies, such as Warren East, chief executive officer, ARM; Eric Rudder, chief technical strategy officer, Microsoft; Trevor Schick, senior vice president, enterprise group supply chain procurement, HP; and Glenn Roland, vice president and head of new platforms and OEM, EA; also took part in the event, echoing Samsung’s mission to offer breakthrough products and create shared value (CSV) for both manufacturers and end-users.
Woo opened by presenting Samsung’s goal for Mobilizing Possibility that takes big ideas off the drawing board and brings them to life for end-users, especially in the areas of processing performance, energy-efficient memory solutions and display technology. He emphasized that the limitless possibilities presented by consumer electronics will be based on component innovations by the company.
Processing Power
The first of Samsung’s new products announced at the keynote was the Exynos 5 Octa, the world’s first mobile application processor to implement the ARM® big.LITTLE™ processing technology based on the Cortex™-A15 CPU. Following the Exynos 5 Dual, which is already on board of market-leading products such as the Google Chromebook and Nexus 10, the successor is the newest addition to the Exynos family of application processors.
“The new Exynos 5 Octa introduces a whole new concept in processing architecture…designed for high-end smartphones and tablets,” said Woo. “When you want multiple applications to perform at their best, you want the best application processor currently available—the Exynos 5 Octa.”
To expand on the big.LITTLE concept, Warren East, chief executive officer, ARM, joined Woo on stage and introduced the new technology that has just become available in silicon through the Exynos 5 Octa. Housing a total of eight cores to draw from—four powerful Cortex-A15™ processors to handle processing-intense tasks along with four additional Cortex-A7™ cores for lighter workloads—the application processor offers maximum performance and up to 70 percent higher energy efficiency compared to the previous quad-core Exynos.
Glenn Roland, vice president and head of new platforms and OEM, EA [Electronic Arts], helped Woo demonstrate the processing power of the Exynos 5 Octa by showing off one of EA’s latest 3D racing games, Need for Speed™ Most Wanted. Atop the reference device, the application processor delivered an elevated real-life gaming experience within the mobile platform, rendering stunning graphics performance and real-time response speed.
Green Memory Capabilities
As advanced processing power on mobile devices accelerates easier data creation by the masses, the mobile experience will increasingly become more dependent upon datacenters largely responsible for the proliferating data traffic. Growing in size and capacity, IT systems face challenges both in performance and power savings to secure sustainability moving forward. Memory devices, the main products for servers that make up these datacenters, can deliver substantial gains by adopting cutting-edge technology available from Samsung.
Woo pointed out that managing the power consumption in these datacenters have become crucial and that Samsung’s green memory solutions with solid state drives (SSD) and advanced DRAM (dynamic random access memory) are addressing this key issue with their powerful, yet energy-efficient processing capabilities. Compared to traditional datacenters that incorporate hard disk drives (HDD), server and storage solutions equipped with green memory pull the data processing speeds up six-fold while operating with 26 percent less electricity.
Display Technology
As components on the surface that interact directly with users, display solutions bring the technology advancements to life and make them tangible through the device interface. Woo presented the future possibilities of Samsung’s displays along with Brian Berkeley, senior vice president of Samsung Display. While crystal-clear picture qualities become a reality, the two Samsung speakers were pleased to share that the innovations do not sacrifice energy efficiency.
Woo and Berkeley described the 10.1-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) panel that is currently adopted by the Nexus 10. With a 2560×1600 resolution and 300 pixels per inch (ppi), the panel renders stunning picture qualities while consuming only 75 percent of the energy used in previous display solutions.
Using Samsung’s energy-efficient green LCD technology, the company is currently developing a 10.1-inch model that would lower power consumption even further by 25 percent, while offering equal resolution qualities as its predecessor.
Prototypes and real-life scenarios for Samsung’s line of flexible organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays were also showcased, promising various mobile application opportunities for consumer electronics manufacturers. Dubbed “YOUM,” the flexible display line-up uses extremely thin plastic instead of glass, making it bendable and virtually “unbreakable.” Berkeley featured a smartphone prototype equipped with a curved edge that showed contiguous content along the side of the device.
“Our team was able to make a high-resolution display on extremely thin plastic instead of glass, so it won’t break even if it’s dropped,” said Berkeley. “This new form factor will really begin to change how people interact with their devices, opening up new lifestyle possibilities … [and] allow our partners to create a whole new ecosystem of devices.”
One of Samsung’s partners that bring the company’s state-of-the-art components together is Microsoft, adding more layers of value to the final product with its software solutions, devices and services. Eric Rudder, chief technical strategy officer, Microsoft, took the complete ATIV family of devices as an example through which Samsung’s component solutions and Windows 8 together present new potential in user interfaces. Rudder reported that Microsoft Research has been continuing its work on next-generation display technologies, enabling new modes of human-computer interaction.
Possibility for All
Creating a better world with its resources is one of Samsung’s core values. Samsung’s flagship corporate social responsibility initiative, Samsung Hope for Children, was launched in this spirit, through which the company provides its products, expertise and financial support to tackle the needs of children around the world for education and healthcare. Woo emphasized that Samsung’s innovation in components share the same thread as a driver that truly mobilizes possibility without boundaries or barriers.
“When [Samsung’s] technologies harmonize, amazing things happen. Advances in components are giving rise to a whole new era of possibility,” said Woo. “At Samsung, we are passionate about Mobilizing Possibility. Not just for the privileged few, but possibility for all.”
For more information about Samsung’s 2013 International CES keynote, visit www.samsung.com/2013ceskeynote or www.samsungces.com.
About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in consumer electronics and the core components that go into them. Through relentless innovation and discovery, we are transforming the worlds of televisions, smartphones, personal computers, printers, cameras, home appliances, medical devices, semiconductors and LED solutions. We employ 227,000 people across 75 countries with annual sales exceeding US$143 billion. Our goal is opening new possibilities for people everywhere. To discover more, please visit www.samsung.com.
ARM TechCon 2012 – Warren East, CEO ARM Keynote [ARMflix, Nov 2, 2012]
More essential details:
– Cortex-A7 OR Low-Power Leadership for A Smarter Future – The Legend of ARM Cortex-A7 [USD 99 Allwinner, Jan 7, 2013]
– Fast 3d party IP OR the external Intellectual Property which makes Allwinner’s unprecedented pace of further next-gen SoC introductions possible despite of the company size of only 500 employees [USD 99 Allwinner, Dec 28, 2012]
– Samsung Exynos 5250 [Dec 6, 2011]
– for Samsung semiconductor foundry operation: see inside the Qualcomm’s critical reliance on supply constrained 28nm foundry capacity [this same ‘Experiencing the ‘Cloud’ blog, July 27 – Nov 13, 2012]
– Intel targeting ARM based microservers: the Calxeda case [this same ‘Experiencing the ‘Cloud’ blog, Dec 14, 2012]
– Intel’s biggest flop: at least 3-month delay in delivering the power management solution for its first tablet SoC [this same ‘Experiencing the ‘Cloud’ blog, Dec 20, 2012]
Windows RT must work with more chips to take off, ARM CEO says [CNET, Jan 9, 2012]
LAS VEGAS — Microsoft’s newest operating system that runs on cell phone chips is off to a slow start, but it’s only a matter of time before it gains more traction, the chief executive of chip technology designer ARM Holdings said.
Warren East, speaking today in an interview with CNET at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, said that for that to happen, Microsoft needs to make its software, dubbed Windows RT, work with more ARM-based processors. He said it eventually will do so, but it’s unclear when that will be.
Currently, Windows RT runs only on Qualcomm and Nvidia chips (it also used to work with Texas Instruments’ processors, but that company decided to move away from providing chips for mobile devices). And only four PC makers ultimately built Windows RT products.
“If Microsoft wants to benefit from the ARM business model and the ARM world, then they’ll have to support multiple players,” East said. “Otherwise, there’s no real advantage for them in working with ARM.”
…
East today noted that when Microsoft first started talking with ARM about making a tablet/PC operating system that works with its processors, Microsoft wanted to work with only one ARM-based chip partner.
“We said, ‘no, no, you need to work with a few, because we have found over the years it helps to work with a few, or otherwise you end up getting too channeled into the requirements of one customer,” he said.
…
Microsoft Research at CES: IllumiRoom [Next at Microsoft blog, Jan 9, 2013]
Earlier this morning at CES, Eric Rudder, Microsoft’s Chief Technology Strategy Officer, joined the Samsung keynote to share Microsoft’s vision for extending computing interactions to any surface in your home. This wasn’t a product launch but I’m excited by the potential shown in the research that we shared.
Imagine a space like your kitchen or a classroom achieving that same level of interactivity as your phone – this will happen through a combination of embedded devices and sensors such as Kinect for Windows. Our research demo only covers educational and entertainment scenarios but the possibilities are endless.
It’s rare for a company to pull back the curtain and share research in such raw form at the world’s largest technology tradeshow. However, we think it’s vitally important to get the next generation of students excited about Computer Science – and what better way than to show off research that makes gaming more fun!
While magicians never share their secrets, researchers have to publish, so, a bit of explanation about the demo is in order. You may have seen interesting 3D-mapped projections over the past few years – Microsoft partners like Nokia and Samsung have both used pre-rendered footage in recent marketing efforts. What’s new in this work is that our researchers used Kinect for Windows to map the room in real-time in order to make projected illusions fully interactive. Most importantly, the effects shown in the video were captured live as they appeared in the living room environment and are not the result of special effects added in post processing.
For more on the science behind this demo, check out the MSR IllumiRoom project site from Hrvoje Benko, Andrew Wilson, Eyal Ofek, and Brett Jones – they’ll have more to come at CHI 2013 in April.
IllumiRoom: Peripheral Projected Illusions for Interactive Experiences [Microsoft Research, Jan 9, 2013 ]
IllumiRoom is a proof-of-concept system from Microsoft Research. It augments the area surrounding a television screen with projected visualizations to enhance the traditional living room entertainment experience.
IllumiRoom uses a Kinect for Windows camera and a projector to blur the lines between on-screen content and the environment we live in allowing us to combine our virtual and physical worlds. For example, our system can change the appearance of the room, induce apparent motion, extend the field of view, and enable entirely new game experiences.
Our system uses the appearance and the geometry of the room (captured by Kinect) to adapt the projected visuals in real-time without any need to custom pre-process the graphics. What you see in the videos below has been captured live and is not the result of any special effects added in post production.
Stay tuned for more information and a paper explaining all the details coming up at ACM CHI 2013.
‘Live book’ on the ‘Allwinner phenomenon’
Working for my ‘Experiencing the Cloud’ trend tracking blog I recognized an absolutely shocking trend in early September, 2012 that here is a $99 Android 4.0.3 7” IPS tablet with an Allwinner SoC capable of 2160p Quad HD and built-in HDMI–another inflection point, from China again. As I worked through that it was also necessary to explore The future of the semiconductor IP ecosystem in order to understand of what is going behind. This whole process lead to this separate blog called ‘USD 99 Allwinner’ the essence of which you can understand by reading its About page. This page will also explain the ‘live book’ style of the new ‘USD 99 Allwinner’ blog.
You can start from that or from the two large compiled collections on the ‘Experiencing the Cloud’ already mentioned above. For those who will start from the About page I will include there a couple of notable excerpts from the large collection posts of the ‘Experiencing the Cloud’.
So Hello world! Here is the Allwinner SoC and the ecosystem built around it.
Have a good reading!
