FROM
THE EDITOR
This week, we drop in on MIPS as they continue their strategy to outfit design teams with a complete platform for embedded system design and deployment. For many of us, it isn’t just about processor IP anymore. We want somebody to pre-solve the complex issues of system integration, tool chain interoperability, and platform verification before we jump in with the value-add that comprises our design. Luckily, suppliers like MIPS are in tune with that need, and are working to deliver the environment we need. Our newest feature takes a look.
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Kevin
Morris – Editor
Embedded Technology Journal
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MIPS Moves on Platforms
Much More than Cores
It sounds like the ideal business model. Design yourself a capable processor, implement it as an ASIC core, talk a few manufacturers of high-volume products into using it in their system-on-chip (SoC) design, and voila! You get a chunk of revenue from every copy of the resulting set-top-box, smart phone, digital camera or embedded-system super-widget that goes out the door. Once you’ve got everything up and running smoothly, you just sit back and watch while the royalty revenues pour in.
Of course, reality is not quite so beautiful. In any gravy-train business model, there will soon be competitors. That competition will force you to up your game to stay ahead. They will try to help the customer more than you do to capture that socket and the revenue that follows it. In the case of processor cores, that means moving beyond the core itself. Processor IP companies like MIPS and ARM are constantly moving farther and farther beyond the core to deliver a comprehensive set of tools and peripherals that form a platform which can be integrated into a variety of system designs with an absolute minimum of effort. They look at all aspects of the integration process, including the design of the hardware platform itself, verification of the ASIC that contains it, training of the development engineers in the vagaries of the platform, software development and debug, porting of legacy IP into a new design – the list goes on and on. [more]
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