SuperH formed by Hitachi and STMicroelectronics to boost µP core proliferation

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9 May 2001 News

STMicroelectronics and Hitachi recently announced an agreement to establish an independent company, named SuperH. The company will develop and license RISC microprocessor cores of the SuperH family. According to the companies, SuperH will license the SH-4 core and all subsequent SuperH cores to the open market, making it easier for customers worldwide to create powerful, cost-effective system-on-chip embedded microprocessor designs. SuperH will also complete final development of the 64 bit SH-5 processor and take over the development of the future SH-6 and SH-7 cores.

Hitachi and STMicroelectronics, both of which are world top-10 semiconductor companies that manufacture and market a broad portfolio of devices, believe that an independently managed entity concentrating on developing and licensing the SuperH family of processor cores will provide significant benefits for systems manufacturers and semiconductor firms.

The success of SuperH will enlarge the already extensive user base for the SuperH architecture and make it an even more compelling embedded system design choice, said the companies, and in particular, for microprocessor-based application-specific products. The potential gains are significant; according to market research firm Gartner Dataquest, the worldwide market for such MPU-based application-specific products should increase by 33% this year and reach 1,4 billion units within four years.

SuperH will have its headquarters in San Jose, California, with operations in Bristol, UK and Tokyo, Japan. The Chief Executive Officer of the new company will be Toshimasa Kihara, formerly General Manager of Microcomputer & ASIC Product Operation at Hitachi, and the Chief Operating Officer will be Jean-Marie Rolland, currently R&D Director for MicroCore Development at STMicroelectronics. Initially, around 100 people will be employed by SuperH, the majority of whom will transfer from Hitachi and STMicroelectronics, said the companies.

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SuperH formed by Hitachi and STMicroelectronics to boost µP core proliferation

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