According to XMOS Semiconductor,
creator of softwaredefined
silicon (SDS), working silicon
and beta design tools are now in the
lab. Test chips were produced by
TSMC on its 90nm G process.
Key to the XMOS SDS technology
is a
According to XMOS Semiconductor,
creator of softwaredefined
silicon (SDS), working silicon
and beta design tools are now in the
lab. Test chips were produced by
TSMC on its 90nm G process.
Key to the XMOS SDS technology
is a compact, event-driven, multithreaded
processor called XCore.
With up to 500MIPS to share across
up to eight threads, the XCore
engine implements a range of complex
hardware functions. By using Cbased
behavioural languages,
designers can quickly map whiteboard
functional specs into silicon.
The XCore processor is tightly coupled
to the outside world through a
set of event-driven input-output ports,
and inter-thread communication is
provided by XLink, a channel mechanism
that allows threads and XCores
to interact at the hardware level.
Design tools and samples of firstgeneration
XMOS SDS chips will be
available in the first half of 2008.
