Tensilica Diamond CPU Controller Cores for NEC Electronics Gate Arrays

Tensilica® Diamond Standard processor cores are available directly from NEC Electronics America for its CMOS-12M, CMOS-10HD, CMOS-9HD and EA-9HD series gate arrays. By making the cores and gate arrays available under one licensing agreement, NEC Electronics America can streamline the design and licensing process and offer ASIC designers a more complete fast turnaround solution-with NRE costs that are substantially lower than costs for cores used in cell-based designs.

Four fully synthesizable 32-bit RISC cores are available with NEC Electronics gate arrays:

106Micro RISC Controller Core

The new Diamond 106Micro core is designed for extremely low power and small die area and is idea for designers seeking to migrate from an 8- or 16-bit controller to a 32-bit controller. Although small in die area, the CPU has performance up to 200 Mhz in NEC Electronics CMOS-12M gate array.

108Mini RISC Controller Core

The Diamond 108Mini core enables SOC architects to integrate an efficient controller in their designs with an extremely quick time-to-market. The 108Mini features low-power consumption and small in die area, with CPU performance at 200 Mhz in NEC Electronics CMOS-12M gate array.

212GP RISC Controller Core

The Diamond 212GP core is a versatile controller that is both area-wise and power-wise. Designers can take advantage of Tensilica's lockable cache and attach any size single-cycle instruction or data SRAM up to 128Kb. In addition, on-chip DSP hardware support reduces the need to use a separate DSP.

232L RISC CPU Core

The Diamond 232L CPU is similar to the 212GP CPU; the main difference is the additional full-featured memory management unit. Targeting applications using operating systems such as embedded Linux, the Diamond 232L caches are 16Kb instruction and data, 4-way set associative.

Tensilica's Diamond Standard processors

The Diamond processors are ready-to-use synthesizable cores that are based on Tensilica's highly efficient Xtensa® configurable and extensible processor architecture, proven in hundreds of SoC designs. The cores are area-efficient, low-power controllers that cover a performance range comparable to ARM7® through ARM9® -class CPUs. The cores provide a versatile and high performance computing architecture for custom-logic design and are ideal for applications ranging from low-power handsets to high-performance communication equipment.

NEC Electronics gate arrays designed with the Diamond Standard cores provide a versatile and high-performance computing architecture for custom-logic design, a combination that enables designers to customize and differentiate their products quickly, efficiently and cost effectively.