Improv Systems Offers Pre-Configured Application Processor Cores Based On Its Popular High Performance, Low Power Jazz Platform

DSP, Multimedia And Voip Application Processor Cores Now Available As “Off-The-Shelf” Solutions For Fast, Efficient Integration

BEVERLY, Mass – July 17, 2006 – Improv Systems, a leading supplier of DSP-based semiconductor intellectual property (IP), today announced it is now offering its popular Jazz™ processing platform as pre-configured, implementation-ready application processor cores that require no programming, customization or configuration by customers. The products include plug-and-play cores and complete application software and come in a variety of options for low-power, high-performance and application-specific requirements. The cores come in three families: Jazz DSP™ for general-purpose DSP processing, Jazz Media™, for multimedia processing and Jazz Voice™ for Voice-over-IP.

The pre-configured versions expand on Improv’s strategy of providing ‘designer-defined’ DSP solutions, offering customers the shortest time to market and more flexibility by using the highly-efficient and powerful capabilities contained within the solutions. Still available optionally as configurable cores for additional customization or custom design requirements, the new pre-configured versions allow designers to quickly integrate production-proven performance and functionality into their complex SoCs with minimal intervention or programming required.

“The market is exploding for application processor cores using our Jazz solution platforms for DSP, multimedia and voice. Facing shortened product life, development cycles and cost reductions, customers are asking for the fastest path to silicon possible. With our Jazz DSP, Jazz Media and Jazz Voice families, we offer a wide breadth of options to support an ever growing range of product needs in these markets, but do so in a way that makes them highly efficient to implement in the shortest possible time with the maximum price-performance compared to traditional configurable IP,” said Bryan Greear, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Improv. “Customers still get all the performance, low power and feature-rich capabilities of our configurable platforms, plus the support of a robust software development tool suite, but now they are available as a silicon-ready pre-configured solution.”

Combining the power of Improv’s Composer™ software tool suite with pre-configured cores and solutions, the offerings are complete hardware/software solutions. They include fully- synthesizable technology and foundry-independent cores that are optimized for efficient die size implementation. All pre-configured application processor solutions are based on the high-performance Jazz Processor, a VLIW processor that contains many advanced architectural features including overlaid data paths, a distributed register system, code compression and power management. The Jazz DSP processor offers typical performance rates of 160MHz and features low power capabilities of less than .1mW/MHz. It is available with either 16-bit or 32-bit data paths and can be licensed as a standalone core.

The Jazz application processor cores are designed for use as a black box implementation featuring complete application software and processors with application-specific instructions for their target applications. The cores contain one or more Jazz processors that work together with the optimized application software to provide high levels of performance and offload CPU overhead that typically hinders performance in consumer and telecom applications. All products come with pre-defined and verified software modules that incorporate the latest standards and functions required in each product market served. They are supported by a suite of software tools and development environment allowing easy integration with existing SoC designs as well as with other popular cores and bus architectures. The solutions also include reference platforms with a full verification environment to enable real-time verification.

The Jazz Media family supports complete elementary stream processing for integrating media processing into consumer devices ranging from cell phones and portable media players up to high-definition displays. The Jazz Media family contains cores for mobile media processing (MMP), advanced audio processing (AAP) and broadcast media processing (BMP). Each of these three versions supports a variety of feature rich design capabilities and offers a broad base of codec support for product implementations and unique requirements of each market including H.264/AVC, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, AAC and MP3.

The Jazz Voice family is targeted for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) product designs and supports all major voice processing standards and requirements. It comes in three specific product configurations: VoIP Phone Processor (VPP) for 2-4 voice channels, VoIP Videophone Processor (VVP) for integrated video and voice processing, and VoIP IAD Processor for integrated access devices up to 32 channels. The Jazz Voice cores feature market-leading channel density with a full voice processing system and maximized solution efficiency for both die size and power. Each configuration of the Jazz Voice family comes complete with a full voice processing system including voice codecs, line echo cancellation, dial-tone management and call control, conferencing support and caller-ID processing.

The Jazz DSP family is targeted for general-purpose DSP processing and can be used to replace existing DSP cores or integrate optimized DSP functionality. It comes in four different configurations: the single-MAC Jazz D10, the dual-MAC Jazz D20, the quad-MAC Jazz D40, and the Jazz Telecom which received the highest performance scores for the EEMBC Telecom suite.

The pre-configured Jazz DSP, Jazz Media and Jazz Voice cores are available for licensing directly from Improv Systems. More information can be found at www.improvsys.com.

About Improv Systems, Inc.

Improv Systems, Inc. develops and licenses configurable and pre-configured DSP solutions to companies implementing high-performance, low-power processing applications. The company’s offerings include the Jazz DSP, Jazz Media and Jazz Voice platforms and come with complete software development tool suites and validated reference boards. Improv’s technology allows designers to create optimized DSP cores targeted to consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications markets. For more information, please visit www.improvsys.com.

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