ARC configures a design flow for system-on-chip

John Walko, EE Times
(12/12/2007 3:37 AM EST)
 
SANTA CLARA, California — Configurable cores and subsystems developer ARC International (St. Albans, England) has developed and is refining a systems development platform that it says will change the way mobile multimedia systems are being designed.

Elements of the platform were described by technologists from ARC at its ConfigCon development conference held here last week, where the company also announced an initiative that offers startups up to $1 million in seed funding. The initiative is in collaboration with some venture capital groups and is targeted at companies developing multimedia applications using ARC tools or IP cores.

"I have already been approached here today by three people who want to apply, and we expect many more. And I would be really pleased if we end up supporting two really good ideas maybe even just one outstanding one," said Carl Schlachte, ARC president and CEO.

Also at the developers' conference, Jeff Hoffman, systems architect at Intel Corps communications laboratory, gave further details of an experimental chip being developed for a PHY chip that would "enable any mobile internet device to connect to any network." The test SoC, based on an ARC 605+ core, initially supports 802.11n WiFi, mobile WiMax and the DVB-H flavor of mobile TV and is being taped out on a TSMC low-power 65-nm process.

"It is not quite the holy grail of wireless connectivity, but we believe it is getting near the vision needed for devising next generation radios for wireless," Hoffman told EE Times.

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