Editor: Linley
Gwennap In This Issue
On May 14, The Linley Group will present a one-day seminar that explores the latest products and technologies for PCI Express, RapidIO, 10G Ethernet, DisplayPort, HyperTransport, and other leading interconnects. Mark your calendars and register now at our web site. This event is sponsored by Freescale, AMCC, Tundra, Pericom, Xilinx, Teranetics, ClariPhy, and the HyperTransport Consortium. For more information, click here. Intel officially announced its much-hyped Atom processor last week. Instead of waiting the usual several months to deploy an embedded version, Intel quickly announced embedded support for Atom. There are two embedded speed grades: 1.6GHz ($95) and 1.1GHz ($45). The pricing includes both the processor chip and the accompanying system-logic chip. Both speed grades are rated at 2.0W of thermal design power (TDP) for the processor or 4.3W TDP for the two-chip set. Atom is Intel's first embedded x86 processor that can fit into sub-5W line-powered equipment. The chip set delivers better performance per watt than many RISC processors, such as AMCC's new 460EX, which dissipates 6.5W (typical) at 1.2GHz. This advantage is likely due to Intel's advanced process technology; Atom is built in a sophisticated 45nm process, while the 460EX uses 90nm technology. The 460EX, however, includes an encryption engine, a RAID engine, a SATA interface, two Ethernet MACs, and a Flash memory controller, commonly required features that must be added externally to Atom. Unlike the 460EX, Atom lacks ECC protection on its front-side bus and SDRAM interface; ECC is required in most SMB, enterprise, and infrastructure equipment. Atom, however, includes graphics acceleration, video acceleration, and display interfaces that most RISC-based SoCs do not. These features position Atom for use in kiosks and other PC-like applications that commonly use x86 processors today. The chip set could also be used in low-volume consumer applications, such as home media servers, where cost and integration are not primary concerns. We expect Atom to be a popular low-end extension to Intel's embedded x86 lineup. It will sell well in markets that have already embraced x86: kiosks, industrial control, storage servers, and the like. For more deeply embedded applications, particularly in networking and communications, Atom lacks the necessary level of integration and feature set. Still, by wielding its process-technology advantage, Intel may steal a few design wins from RISC competitors. —Linley Complete coverage of Intel's Atom processor will appear in our upcoming edition of A Guide to High-Speed Embedded Processors. Last week, LSI announced the T1000, the first new content-processing chip to emerge from last year's acquisition of Tarari. The T1000 is also the first chip implementation of the T10 architecture that Tarari disclosed in February 2007. At that time, the startup touted 10Gbps performance and said it would sample a T10-based chip (ASSP) by the end of 2007. But following the acquisition, LSI instead prioritized a lower-cost version to address higher-volume performance points. And unlike Tarari's original T9000, the T1000 contains only regular-expression (regex) engines with no XML, compression, or encryption engines. LSI will offer four versions of the T1000 with performance ranging from 250Mbps to 2Gbps of regex throughput. The chip achieves its maximum throughput using only a single external DRAM. Alternatively, the T1000 can use host memory for throughputs up to 500Mbps, making it a true single-chip regex device. The high-end version includes a two-lane PCI Express interface, which is required to achieve the full 2Gbps throughput. The low-end version includes a single PCIe lane as well as a 32-bit PCI interface. Volume pricing ranges from $20 for the 250Mbps device to $75 for the 2Gbps chip. LSI expects to sample the T1000 in June. Until now, content-inspection accelerators have carried system costs in the hundreds of dollars, limiting their potential market to only high-end security appliances and switch/router services blades. The T1000 expands the market for content-inspection accelerators into SMB-class appliances and branch-office routers, which represent millions of units shipped annually. Although 10Gbps performance is sexy, we think LSI made the right call in first delivering the T1000. —Bob Additional coverage of LSI/Tarari appears in our report A Guide to Security Processors and Accelerators. Jumping on the multicore bandwagon, MIPS Technologies introduced last week a multiprocessor-capable version of its 34K CPU. The new 1004K CPU comes with a coherence manager that connects up to four CPUs. This allows licensees to develop multicore products using a fully synthesizable CPU subsystem. The first products using the new core are expected to sample in 2H09. Like the 34K, the 1004K supports two threads per CPU, so a four-core system can have up to eight threads. Once customers port their software to use multiple CPUs, the software can also take advantage of the extra threads to achieve even more performance. Using various EEMBC benchmarks, MIPS has measured gains of 30% to 40% from multithreading. For applications that require the best single-thread performance, MIPS also offers the 74K CPU, which can exceed 1GHz in a synthesized 65nm implementation. For applications that can use multiple threads, multicore designs based on the 1004K will deliver more performance than a single 74K. Thus, MIPS now has strong offerings for either style of SoC design. —Linley
A Guide to High-Speed Interconnects examines the leading high-speed interconnect technologies, including PCI Express, RapidIO, and HDMI, and provides a critical analysis of their strengths, future potential, and projected market. In addition, within each interconnect, we examine the key vendors offering silicon products as well as the intellectual property to enable silicon. For each interconnect segment, we provide market forecast and share our picks for future leaders. The report has been extensively revised to incorporate new technologies and announcements made since the release of the previous edition. New in this edition is coverage of transmitter, receiver, and switch products for HDMI, the dominant interconnect for HDTV. Also covered are products for DisplayPort as well as bridge and switch products for PCI Express and RapidIO. We look at the standards for these interconnects as well emerging standards. Some of these changes could present opportunities for new leaders to emerge in the affected interconnect segments. These include DisplayPort, MR-IOV, PCI Express Gen2, and the adoption of blade servers. "A Guide to High-Speed Interconnects" examines in detail the performance, feature sets, and architecture of each covered product, highlighting strengths and weaknesses in a consistent, easy-to-compare fashion. We examine competing specifications and the vendor activity behind each technology. Order by May 16 to take advantage of a special prepublication discount. For more information on this report, visit our web site. To receive Linley Wire via e-mail, click here
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