Food for thought. At least we get favorable mention.
LG Semicon injects fresh life into Java processors
By Alexander Wolfe
EE Times
(07/09/99, 6:50 p.m. EDT)
SEOUL, South Korea — After effectively being declared dead last fall, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s fading three-year-old bid to drum up interest in microprocessors that execute Java in hardware is showing renewed signs of life.
In an exclusive interview, LG Semicon executives here said they plan to release by year's end a second-generation embedded Java chip: the MJ501 (for Media Java). "We have working samples based on [Sun's] picoJava II core," an LG Semicon official said. "We've made a reference board and it's working. It's targeted at Web phones and set-top boxes."
The 0.25-micron CMOS chip is running at a "very fast" clock speed, the official said. Although he declined to provide specifics, the target is believed to be 100 MHz.
Separately, two other Java chips are waiting in the wings — the PSC1000 from Patriot Scientific Corp. and the JEM from Rockwell Collins. Neither is based on Sun's picoJava technology but both could find their way into real-world embedded applications. (The Rockwell Collins chip won't be sold on the merchant market but is being evaluated for captive design into avionics systems produced by the company.)
Despite the LG Semicon effort, the paucity of picoJava-based designs has raised flags that Sun's Java-chip strategy has borne little fruit. Sun disputes that view. "We think we've reached a new plateau," said Fadi Azhari, manager of Sun's community source license group.
Insiders said that delays in bringing silicon to market may have come about not so much because nobody is interested in making the chips, but because Sun's picoJava I core was not as flexible as expected. Now, with the second-generation picoJava II core, Sun appears to have fixed any glitches.
Sun's market strategy was also initially flawed, one Java-silicon expert claimed. "Sun failed not because of lack of market, but because of lack of execution," he said. "They have a desktop and server mentality. There is no desktop market for Java chips, but there will be demand in the embedded space."
Efforts to thrust picoJava forward may also have been shaken by the recent departure to a start-up of Harlan McGhan, the technical marketing manager who had served as Sun's chief evangelist for the technology.
To revive interest, Sun has done a 180° marketing turn. Whereas, previously, a company had to pay license fees up front, it can now download a free Verilog rendering of the picoJava II core under Sun's "I think it was an aggressive move on their part," said the Java-silicon expert. "On the other hand, desperation could have been partly a factor in the decision."
Under the new strategy, Azhari said, Sun now has about 1,000 picoJava licensees. That list includes system-on-chip houses VAutomation Inc., Infinite Technology and jCan Corp. (Some competitors, noting that fees must be paid to Sun only if an actual chip goes into production, archly characterized the 1,000 figure not as the number of licensees but as the number of downloads.) Azhari said that the first results of the plan could be expected to hit the market in about six months.
LG Semicon angle
In an arena where even small steps are seen as big wins, LG Semicon appears to be ahead of the pack. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) is planning to use LG Semicon's 501 as the heart of a low-end set-top box.
"I have compared the performance with StrongARM, and I think it's very good," said Jordan Sohn, a senior researcher at ETRI (Taejon, South Korea). He said the set-top box will be demonstrated by the end of the year. However, it should be noted that ETRI is not a player in the U.S. set-top market.
Regardless, looking at a block diagram of LG Semicon's MJ501 Java chip, it's clear why it would appeal to designers of set-top boxes as well as Web phones. The picoJava II core, which constitutes the central CPU that executes the Java byte codes, is surrounded by a host of on-chip peripherals tailored to consumer-electronics applications. These include a 2-D graphics engine, NTSC encoder, audio and CRT controllers, cable input and PCI connection.
Surrounding the basic core with an application-specific set of peripherals was the original concept behind the Java chips.
Domestically, the LG Semicon reference board is likely to attract more attention than the ETRI prototype. Nevertheless, LG Semicon's MJ501 will face stiff competition in the embedded arena from the StrongARM, MIPS and MCore CPUs.
If the experiences of Patriot Scientific are any indication, Java chips may be about to come into their own. Patriot makes the PSC1000 processor, which is widely acknowledged as the first Java chip to ship in quantity.
"In terms of the market, there's a tremendous opportunity there," said Phil Morettini, vice president at Patriot.
Perhaps the technology was somewhat ahead of its time. "I have found a consistent level of interest over the past two years," he said. "However, we're just now getting to the point where customers really want to see these things; we have a couple of hot prospects."
Of all the offerings, the Rockwell Collins JEM Java chip seems to have developed an almost cultlike following. Rockwell Collins is the avionics division of the Rockwell conglomerate. Conexant (formerly Rockwell Semiconductor Systems) is the chip-producing arm for Rockwell's many divisions.
A spokeswoman for Conexant said the company had studied whether it would be worthwhile to produce Rockwell Collins' chips for the merchant market and had firmly decided not to do so. Nevertheless, supporters of the chip have vociferously stated their belief in the worthwhile nature of JEM's design.
Rockwell Collins officials said merchant production was entirely up to Conexant, and they had no gripe with its decision.
However, Rockwell Collins is continuing to improve the technology. "We are moving forward and exploring the applications of this technology to avionics and non-avionics systems," said Raj Aggarwal, vice president of the advanced technology center at the company.
Indeed, Rockwell Collins has already developed the second generation of its JEM Java processor. Aggarwal added that Rockwell Collins would use the processor in avionics designs and would license it to parties interested in non-avionics applications.
Aggarwal believes that there are ample applications for the CPU and that headroom remains in clock speed. Equally important, JEM is designed specifically for low-power operation — an inherent plus for aircraft applications.
The chief impediment to use of the processor in strictly specified avionics and military apps is the need to ensure determinism; that is, that interrupts are handled within a given window of time. That will require better garbage collectors (memory clean-up software) — something the Java software industry is hard at work on.
Elsewhere, NEC Corp. is proceeding with previously announced plans to target the microcontroller segment with semicustom applications. Low-end offerings would include the core but without its cache and floating-point unit. However, there may not be a lot of customer demand on that front.
A company spokeswoman said that NEC had developed a picoJava I test chip, which can be provided to any customers who are interested. However, NEC has not yet decided whether to produce the processor in volume. Currently, the development of a picoJava II-based offering is under consideration.
Moving forward, it's clear that the jury is still out on Java silicon. Industry experts aren't convinced that even the fastest processor can overcome the performance baggage Java carries because it is essentially an interpreted programming language. (Java software must be converted to intermediate "byte codes" prior to execution.)
In contrast, Java proponents believe speed gains can be had by running Java byte codes directly in hardware. They also note that Java software is inherently portable and can run on any processor; however, this may not be much of a selling point in the embedded arena.
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