Product category: Programmable Logic Devices
News Release from: XMOS Semiconductors | Subject: XS1-G
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 17 April 2008
Programmable devices sport 32bit RISC
processors
XS1-G devices suit products requiring programmable flexibility and differentiation but which cannot support the relatively high cost of traditional programmable logic solutions.
XMOS Semiconductor has announced its first family of programmable chips The XS1-G product family comprises three devices offering a choice of one, two or four of the company's XCore event-driven multithreaded processor tiles and are priced between US $1 and $10 in volume
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 12 Jul 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Programmable silicon is made for consumer designs
Software Defined Silicon aims to provide consumer electronics system designers with the unit cost advantage of SoCs and the flexibility of FPGAs.
Software defined silicon nears reality
Innovative multiprocessor approach to configurable semiconductor devices brings a new level of flexibility and low cost to a broad range of consumer applications.
Employing an entirely software based design flow that uses C and the XMOS originated XC programming language, XS1-G eliminates the delays involved in classic hardware description languages and low level logic synthesis.
The first device to be made available by XMOS will be the quad-XCore, XS1-G4.
XS1-G devices suit products requiring programmable flexibility and differentiation but which cannot support the relatively high cost of traditional programmable logic solutions.
Further reading
Low-cost FPGA family available in production
Built on TSMC's 65nm low-power process, the Cyclone III family includes devices that are qualified for commercial, industrial and extended temperatures.
Driver drives LED efficiency
STMicroelectronics has introduced a new white LED driver with specific features for small LCD module backlight and high efficiency white LED power supply for portable applications.
Typical SDS applications include set-top boxes, home networking, display panel control, toys, and consumer electronics.
The XMOS chips can significantly augment the function of standard product ICs, ASICs, SoCs and FPGAs, or be used to implement a complete system.
Each XCore 32bit RISC processor engine offers designers up to eight threads and is integrated with all the required support resources into a building block called the XCore tile.
Event-driven and tightly coupled to a highly flexible intelligent I/O pin structure, the XCore processor delivers up to 400MIPS per tile, enabling implementation of concurrent real-time hardware and software functions, ranging from simple I/O interfaces through to complete software applications.
A total of 64 user definable I/Os are provided per tile, offering a mix of 1, 2, 4, 8 16 and 32bit bidirectional serdes integrated ports.
Memory resources include 64Kbyte of SRAM for user code and 8Kbyte of OTP memory.
32 XLink 1Gbit/s channel ends interconnect adjacent XCore tiles and enable threads to interact without the disadvantage of shared memory systems.
An embedded hardware thread scheduler dynamically selects threads for execution, providing kernel-level control capabilities.
Designs for XS1-G devices use an embedded software development flow.
Two compilers target the XCore processor engine an ANSI C compiler from ACE Associated Compiler Experts and the XMOS XC compiler.
A mapper/linker builds object files from the source code and precompiled IP modules.
The two compilers are seamlessly integrated for mixed C and XC projects.
XC is an XMOS-originated variant of C that supports parallel processing, event-driven control and time-based programming.
A companion Eclipse IDE provides developers with a complete debug and simulation environment.
To further reduce product development times, XMOS Semiconductor provides a range of precompiled and preverified software components providing fast access to a wealth of proven intellectual property.
Interface IP currently available ranges from an SRAM interface through to a 10/100 Ethernet MAC, while the software stack selection includes 128bit AES encryption and FIR filtering.
• XMOS Semiconductors: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
