Tensilica's Networking Thrust - Fujitsu Ltd.'s Transport Systems Group, - TranSwitch Corp

Reconfigurable processor start-up Tensilica Inc. last week signed up two more licensees of its Xtensa processor technology, both of which plan to employ the technology for communications products.
Fujitsu Ltd.'s Transport Systems Group said that it will use Tensilica's processor generator for the development of embedded microprocessors for a variety of future communications products. Likewise, TranSwitch Corp., Shelton, Conn., said that it will use Xtensa for the development of embedded microprocessors, most likely for use in telecommunications infrastructure systems.
The design wins suggest a trend in the industry toward wireless communications and digital data transmission, applications that Tensilica hadn't previously seen as its sweet spot. While digital cameras, printers and digital televisions all have utilized the Xtensa architecture in the past, the company said that it is seeing more and more acceptance in the networking and communications space.
"The issue of just where are all of these communications products coming from is one that we're very close to," said Chris Rowen, chief executive officer of Tensilica, Santa Clara, Calif. "There are thousands of new communications products being designed right now and it seems like a frightening percentage of them say, 'Well, it's got to have a processor in there, because I can't possibly hardwire all of the algorithms.'
"And they need to have the performance and differentiation that comes from having a true application-specific support. That's why we're seeing a lot of acceptance from people like Cisco and Galileo Technology, which are all moving in the same general direction of using application specific processors for communications-enabled applications."
Xtensa, a configurable 32-bit architecture, utilizes a combination of processor, electronic design automation and embedded software development technology to achieve an optimal configuration in a few hours, the company said. Using the appropriate standard cell library, a user can target the processor to the semiconductor process and vendor of his choice.
Achieving 165MIPS at 150MHz and a code density that the company claims is 10 percent to 50 percent better than competing cores, the Xtensa architecture is the two-year-old firm's flagship product.
"Tensilica's Xtensa processor technology gives us the combination of performance, instruction set customization and DSP (digital signal processor) capability that is required in our future products," said Akira Tsuchiya, Fujitsu's General Manager of the Circuit and Device Technology Division.
Tensilica's approach to DSP is less classical and more customized for such consumer and communications applications than conventional programmable DSPs, Rowen said. "When we think about DSP, we both mean a classical DSP, as well as how do you use this powerful notion to do multiple operations per cycle on some particular image format or some particular signal format.
"If you take, for example, JPEG compression, that's a problem which has lots of multiplies and adds in it, and you would think that a classic DSP chip would be good at it. But the instruction sets don't typically map very well to the algorithm, and what we have done, it turns out, is a significantly better fit.
"Being able to define new application-specific signal processing instructions is one of the greatest opportunities now," he said.