Interesting post from RB...
FWIW here's something of interest from RB...
By: red_beard
Reply To: None Wednesday, 28 Jul 1999 at 5:50 PM EDT
Post # of 56750
Status of Embassy II Silicon
I have spoken with Steven Sprague about this issue, which
I had raised earlier. See my previous posts on the subject
to review my concerns.
I was thoroughly impressed with Steven: he is not an IC
guy (although his father was), but was on top of every
detail (technical, schedule, risk, etc.). All answers
were given instantly; this info is in his head, not just
in a file cabinet!
Since I wanted my comments to be accurate I asked Steven to
review them prior to my posting. This he did, despite
having a very tough schedule. The notes below are the
result.
To make a long story short, I am much more comfortable
with the situation. The Embassy II development is now
proceeding fairly smoothly after some initial glitches.
There are multiple paths to success. The acquisition of
N*Able significantly reduces both the technical and
schedule risk. While there are no guarantees in the world
of IC development, the Embassy II chip looks under control
and on track. There are no major technology issues at
this point, just normal IC engineering. Here are my
comments:
Embassy II Silicon Status as of 27 July 1999
General Comments
"Pretty good progress!"
As I suspected, the biggest problem has been getting access to a good FLASH process at a vendor with a sufficiently powerful core. This is a tough technology and not many design houses can handle it.
"All silicon vendors appear at first to be more competent than they are." This has required extra work on Wave's part, and resources are stretched thin. This is where the extra engineering resources from N*Able are so valuable.
ITE and SMSC are awaiting a fully debugged Embassy II core before proceeding. Since the N*Able security processor should be able to accommodate Embassy II (test in progress), the debugged core may be available before that from Atmel. This will cut 6-9 months off the schedule.
Wave is beyond "inventing" at this point for Embassy II; fine tuning is the work at hand. An example of the fine tuning is determining how much memory should be on chip (e.g., to emulate a SmartCard would take 32 k of memory).
Embassy II I/O is being geared to the USB and LPC busses, which set the speed limit. All applications except raw video can be comfortably decrypted at these bus speeds. In general not all of the bits are decrypted for video and audio, so EMBASSY should have no bandwidth limitations.
The parallel paths of Atmel and N*Able for the development and debug, together with ITE and SMSC for full-custom production, significantly reduces the Embassy II schedule risk.
Atmel
Strong advantage: Embassy II is a minor variation of the same security chip Atmel sells to the U.S. government!
First prototype already in test will not have full functionality (some functions will have to be simulated).
Second-generation prototype due out in Q4. This device will have full functionality and will be used to sample OEMs, partners, etc. They should be able to get their boards and testing going with this part in preparation for production silicon.
Final production version will be ready mid-to-late Q1 2000, at which point production will ramp up.
N*Able
Samsung makes chip with a full-custom FLASH/logic process.
N*Able provides Wave with a security core vs Wave having to develop one. This core is already in its initial testing and is about 3 months ahead of Atmel. Having a core will enable (get it ;-)) Wave to offer a finished EMBASSY core to other partners 6 - 9 months ahead of schedule.
ITE
The current plan is to use the N*Able core.
SMSC
Customers were not eager for early SMSC silicon (Embassy I) because it required battery backup (i.e., it was not a non-volatile process like FLASH). SMSC does not want to do circuit design; it will wait until it can drop in a debugged Embassy II core.
Embassy I Notes
Wave has about 20 k parts in inventory, and has 100 k parts on order from Oki. There is no problem in supplying Hauppauge and Actiontec.
Happy Investing!
Red_beard
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