This week’s Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) will see ARM and Intel expanding on their plans to drive their mobile processor technologies further into ultra-low power devices with embedded wireless, from low end consumer products to sensors. But other companies see the proliferation of different devices as a chance to steal some ground from the two major processor architectures. Two of those with the greatest interest in sidelining ARM are MIPS and graphics core specialist Imagination Technologies, which have announced a marketing alliance to encourage and support customers in adopting a combination of their designs.
ARM has recently taken Imagination on directly with the expansion of its Mali graphics core program. Now Imagination, which boasts Intel and Apple as stakeholders, is targeting markets where MIPS is strong, such as broadband devices – while MIPS hopes its new partner will bolster its recent initiative to push its architecture into smartphones and media players. At this stage, the firms are not exchanging intellectual property or collaborating on technology R&D, but they have joined each other’s partner programs and will jointly support shared customers. Deeper cooperation and combined development could follow in future though, MIPS’ VP of marketing, Art Swift, told EETimes.
The two companies will show a working HD set-top box chip from Sigma Designs that uses Imagination’s PowerVR SGX graphics core and a MIPS32 24Kf core. Set-top boxes are a key target for MIPS, which has an initiative geared to Android TV platforms. As digital home products gain 3D and more advanced user interfaces, powerful graphics cores will become more important. “It wasn’t until the new connected TV platforms, Android, Adobe Flash and OperaTV emerged in the last two or three years that consumer OEMs started to demand a richer graphics,” Swift said in the interview. MIPS will also continue to work with existing graphics core partners such as Vivante and Digital Media Professionals. ”
Also at ESC, Freescale will announce partnerships with embedded software houses to give its customers an alternative to Wind River’s technology, which is now owned by Intel. Although Wind River’s real time OS and Linux software is still being offered to all its clients, its new embedded software packages, to debut at ESC, are targeted initially at x86. Freescale is broadening its own ecosystem by working with Enea Systems, Green Hills Software and Mentor Graphics. It says it has chosen to create a strong group of independent software houses rather than acquiring its own technology, as Intel has, as well as Cavium, which purchased embedded Linux firm MontaVista.
Freescale will share intellectual property and conduct technology and market development programs with its three partners, targeting its QorIQ, PowerQuicc and StarCore processors. The products in question are Mentor’s System Builder version of Linux, which will replace LTIB, an inhouse Linux currently used for PowerQuicc and QorIQ. Enea and Green Hills will provide optimized versions of their tools and compilers for Linux and RTOS.
Also from Freescale at ESC will come its latest attack on Texas Instruments’ DSP crown, a high end for its range in the shape of the MSC825x family, based on the SC3850 StarCore DSP core. The firm says the top model, the eight-core MSC8256, will offer twice the performance, for less than half the price, of similar Texas DSPs because it has beaten the market leader to the 45nm process. The same software runs on the whole MSC825x family from the single-core MSC8251 to the eight-core top end. The processors are targeted at base stations, medical, aerospace and test/measurement applications.