Wind is involved in the NEC Geode PC on a chip system announced 2 days ago. Here is the article snatched from the Intel thread - read down to see NECs partners on the project. Matches the recent upturn in the stock. Rich
National Semiconductor Launches First Information Appliance on a Chip
businesswire.com
newspage.com
July 16, 1999
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE) via NewsEdge Corporation -- First Offering from National's Geode(TM) Family of Information Appliance Solutions Targets Set-Top Box Market; Receives Broad Industry Support
National Semiconductor Corporation(R) (NYSE:NSM) today announced it has successfully integrated all the semiconductor content for an information appliance onto a single chip. Previously dubbed "PC- or Information-Appliance-on-a-Chip," National's Geode(TM) SC1400 is the first member of a family of silicon and system solutions under National's new Geode brand. The Geode SC1400 is designed to deliver an optimal Internet experience for the interactive set-top box market - providing full web-browsing functionality together with state-of-the-art digital video.
The Geode family offers customers a tailored feature set for each of National's target segments in the information appliance market - set-top boxes, thin clients such as Windows-based terminals, and personal access devices such as the WebPAD(TM) reference design that National introduced in November 1998. For future versions of the chip, manufacturers can specify the configurations they require, drawing on National's library of reusable intellectual-property building blocks.
Since National announced its plan in April 1998 to produce a PC-on-a-Chip, market demand for Internet access has moved beyond the PC to include a variety of optimized and dedicated devices. National added the MPEG video decoding function to the original feature set and is now specifically targeting the information appliance market. Set-top boxes currently being designed by customers around Geode solutions are expected to be on the market by the summer of 2000.
"The emerging information appliance market will expand tremendously over the next five years, reaching a worldwide shipment level of almost 65 million units in 2003," said Kevin Hause, manager of Consumer Devices Research at International Data Corp. "One of the key factors in this growth is the integration of functionality into less silicon, which both reduces cost and provides greater design flexibility."
National's Geode products are expected to be adopted by many of its current customers, including the Acer Group; America Online Inc.; Gradiente; Grundig AG; Legend Computer Systems Ltd.; Philips Electronics and Wyse Technology. The company has already received infrastructure support for it single-chip solutions from key industry players such as Boca Research Inc.; BSQUARE Corp.; iCompression Inc.; Liberate Techologies; Microsoft Corp.; QNX Software Systems; WebSurfer Inc. and Wind River Systems Inc. (Please see the Geode Industry Support announcement that National also made today.)
"Our Geode family of highly integrated, low-power solutions will enable the industry to finally move fully PC-compatible Internet access beyond the PC, " said Brian Halla, National president and CEO. "We are uniquely positioned to help our customers accelerate the adoption of appliances optimized for accessing information on the web."
Benefits of Geode Architecture
Designed around National's widely adopted x86-based MediaGX(TM) processor core, the Geode SC1400 integrates digital video and major PC functions, with the exception of DRAM and high-voltage components, into a single chip of silicon. These functions include the processor, system logic, graphics, MPEG video decompression, audio, TV input/output and peripheral input/output - all of which require at least half a dozen separate chips in a conventional set-top box. The Geode x86 processor core is a critical feature, needed to deliver a full, rich Internet experience based on complete compatibility with standard applications and plug-ins. High-end hardware MPEG-2 decoding technology supports streaming video, DVD playback and video-on-demand.
This level of integration offers information appliance manufacturers several significant advantages: high performance, low power consumption (for long battery life and no cooling fans), and small form factor (especially important in consumer devices). In addition, customers' overall design and manufacturing costs are lower because National provides validated system solutions with fewer components. Perhaps most importantly in this highly competitive market, the x86 architecture helps shorten design and development time because it is a common platform with the broadest installed base, the greatest array of design tools, and largest population of software engineers.
"National has assembled all of the building blocks to achieve a true system solution for information appliances," said Mario Morales, International Data Corp.'s program director of Semiconductors. "By leveraging its core competencies, as well as a rigorous reusable IP philosophy, National brings together a versatile system solution that enables multiple emerging consumer devices."
Building-Block Methodology
In order to succeed in the rapidly developing information appliance market, silicon providers need to have essential building blocks of core technologies at their disposal.
Customers will dictate specific functionality to be integrated into Geode products, including MPEG for the set-top box market, 10/100 Ethernet networking blocks for thin clients, and RF (radio frequency) wireless capabilities for portable access devices. In addition to processor, video, multimedia and peripheral technologies, information appliances require the analog capabilities that are National's core competency, since they provide the critical interface between humans and the digital world.
"With our advanced MediaGX, MPEG and communications cores, as well as our analog expertise, National's Geode family has both the building blocks and the methodology to help the information appliance market take off, by accelerating our customers' time to market for these devices," said Michael Polacek, vice president of National's Information Appliance Division.
Critical to the success of the Geode project has been National's unique reusable core methodology, which enables its design engineers to reduce their own time to market by combining interchangeable cores to create a final product. Silicon for the super-integrated Geode SC1400 was produced just six months after the specifications were finalized, and the company is working to shorten that cycle for future versions.
Although design and development for this groundbreaking achievement was coordinated by National's design center in Israel, many National design teams around the world contributed expertise to the project. National design engineers in Bangalore, India; Longmont, Colo.; Richardson, Texas; Santa Clara and Fremont, Calif.; and Tel Aviv, Israel collaborated in a virtual global team to optimize and integrate 43 functional blocks on the chip.
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