RMI Corporation Launches Industry's First Quad-Core Multi-Threaded Processor With Integrated Serial RapidIO Interface and IEEE1588 Controller for Wireless Base-Station Markets

New XLS Processor Offerings Enhance Baseband and Network Interface Processing Performance While Providing Pin-Compatible Upgradeability to Existing XLS Processor Families

BARCELONA, Spain -- February 11, 2008 -- RMI Corporation (RMI®), a leading supplier of processors for Infrastructure, Enterprise and Consumer applications, today announced additional members to the XLS Processor™ Family, the XLS416 and XLS616 Processors, to serve the emerging needs in wireless base station applications. The new offering represents the industry’s first multi-core multi-threaded processor with integrated support for Serial RapidIO interface as well as for IEEE1588 precision timing protocol (PTP) controller making it an ideal solution for next generation designs. Each of the new quad-core members of the XLS Processor Family provide customers with pin-compatible upgradeability to the previously announced dual core and single core processors within the XLS Family.

The XLS Processor™ is a feature-rich general purpose processor with application specific autonomous hardware accelerators and multiple on-chip interconnect options providing an ideal combination of high level programmability, performance scalability, and intelligent packet management. RMI’s XLS Processor enables integrated control plane, data plane, and security processing in a single System-on-a-Chip (SoC) solution. The XLS Processor Family is optimized for applications such as Wireless Base Stations, where PCB real estate and power are at a premium, while requiring integrated network connectivity, security, and compression acceleration options. These features offered by XLS will benefit emerging wireless standards that emphasize high data rate and low latency applications such as Mobile VoIP and Video conferencing.

"Next-generation 3G, WiMAX, and LTE base stations require both high-performance processing and high-speed interconnect," said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group, a leading provider of independent technology analysis. "The industry has adopted SRIO as the interconnect of choice in baseband applications. Additionally, most next-generation base stations will have an IP backhaul, which requires stringent timing synchronization. By combining four multi-threaded CPUs, an integrated SRIO interface, and an IEEE1588 controller on a single chip, RMI provides base-station vendors with a high-performance and cost-effective solution for baseband as well as network-interface processing.”

“The new Quad-Core XLS Processor places strategic emphasis on the Mobile Infrastructure market and leverages RMI’s strength in innovative multi-core and multi-threaded processing architecture. This strength, coupled with our close relationships gives RMI the technical foundation and expertise to deliver a truly innovative base station solution with very low system power," said Lance L. Smith, vice president and general manager, Scalable Processor Solutions, RMI.

The XLS Processor provides the speed, scalability, and integration necessary for a wide range of applications while maintaining software compatibility throughout the product families. The XLS416 and the XLS616 are targeted at the cellular base station market, according to In-Stat, a market research firm, this is forecasted to have 4.7 million stations in operation by 2011. Derived from RMI’s powerful XLR Processor Family, the XLS Processor supports fine grained multi-threading technology enabling each processor core to serve as four “virtual CPUs”. The result is a core that can context switch every cycle enabling multi-context operation with zero performance overhead. RMI’s threading technology benefits latency sensitive networks in which memory access times cause single threaded CPUs to stall when accessing memory.

Quad-Core XLS Processor Overview

RMI’s XLS616 and XLS416 Processors integrate up to 16 vCPUs™ (fine-grain HW processing threads using single-clock thread context switching) from four MIPS64 CPUs, three high speed on-chip interconnects, large multi-level caches, autonomous security and compression accelerators, multiple memory controllers, IEEE1588 PTP controller, eight Gigabit Ethernet MACs, Serial RapidIO, PCI-Express, and GPIO. The XLS616 supports four 32/36-bit DDR-2 Memory controllers for memory intensive applications while the XLS416 supports two 32/36-bit memory controllers for systems in which cost and power are more significant constraints. Both RMI devices can be configured to support the 64/72-bit interfaces required for interfacing to low-cost commodity DIMM memories. The new devices provide pin-compatible upgrades for all members of the XLS Processor Family including the 600 Series, 400 Series, and 200 Series of the XLS Processor family.

Pricing and Availability

The XLS416/616 Processor will sample in Q3 2008 with full-production expected in Q1 2009. The XLS Processor family enables a wide range of system price/performance points, from the entry level through the mid-range of the markets for which it serves. Pricing is available upon request.

About RMI Corporation

RMI® Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company providing highly integrated, feature-rich products ranging from power-optimized System-on-a-Chip (SoC) solutions to High-Performance Processors for the Digital Consumer, Wireless, Networking and Security markets. RMI offers the most advanced and the most complete MIPS-compatible processing solutions with both 32/64-bit architectures supporting frequencies from 300MHz to 1.2 GHz. RMI is headquartered in Cupertino, CA with branch and subsidiary operations in Texas, United Kingdom, India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China. More information about RMI can be found on the company’s website at http://www.RMICorp.com.