Royal Philips Electronics has announced it is securing its position at the leading edge of low-power CMOS technology for consumer-product applications, by successfully implementing a 'right-first-time' 65-nm system-on-chip (SoC), which has the design complexity required in next-generation mobile multimedia and home entertainment products such as 3G mobile phones and high-performance LCD TVs.
Featuring an 'intelligent energy manager' (IEM) technology-enabled ARM1176JZF-S processor, 512 KB of high-speed low-power scratch-pad memory, high-speed communication ports and key analog IP blocks, the new Philips chip is said to be the first truly consumer-product oriented SoCs to be successfully produced in 65-nm low-power CMOS technology. Philips designed it as a platform to demonstrate what next-generation consumer products will be able to deliver in terms of a rich multimedia experience coupled with sense and simplicity of operation. It is already at the heart of new 65-nm CMOS SoCs currently in an advanced stage of development at Philips.
Low power by design was a key requirement for the chip because of the need to simultaneously meet the performance, complexity and power consumption requirements of battery-powered applications such as mobile phones and portable media players. The chip also utilises several other low-power features such as the division of critical circuitry into voltage islands. Achieving low power by design is seen as crucial to overcoming the fact that the overall power budget for sub-100 nm CMOS chips is rapidly getting smaller.
"Philips' leading-edge 65 nm process technology for low-power devices, coupled with the highly-optimised design of the ARM1176JZF-S processor is an excellent starting point for building a market-leading integrated multimedia device," said Mike Inglis EVP marketing, ARM. "Re-usable right-first-time IP integration is essential for delivering products to current market requirements in a cost-effective solution."
Extensive testing has already seen the new Philips SoC booting and running the Linux operating system, which is rapidly gaining favour in the consumer-electronics market due to its modularity, scalability, open-source philosophy and low-cost development tool support.
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