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To: John Rieman who wrote (34943)	8/4/1998 9:16:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Philips is still touting its TriMedia media processor........... eet.com Philips plans 64-bit TriMedia processor By Peter Clarke SUNNYVALE, Calif. - While Chromatic Research Inc. has abandoned its very long-instruction-word approach to graphics processing, its main media-processor competitor, Philips Semiconductors, is still waving the VLIW flag. Papers to be presented by Philips at two upcoming technical conferences maintain that a VLIW compiler-and-chip architecture works just fine for digital TV and graphics, and can work even better by using multislot operations and 64-bit words. The company's VLIW architecture, known as TriMedia, is already aimed at DTV. At the conferences Philips will lay out its second-generation TM-2000, and detail plans to take the TriMedia to 64-bit word lengths. It will also describe ways to improve the multimedia capabilities of its "five-slot" instruction architecture, to be used in a third generation of 64-bit TriMedia devices that are scheduled to appear toward the end of 1999. On Aug. 18 at the Hot Chips conference in Palo Alto, Calif., J.T.J. van Eijndhoven and Frans Sijstermans of Philips Research Laboratories (Eindhoven, Netherlands) will present "Novel Multimedia Instruction Capabilities in VLIW Media Processors." On Oct. 13 at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, Calif., Sijstermans will unveil the 64-bit successor to the 32-bit TriMedia. This is destined to be the core of two processors, one aimed at high-end videoconferencing, the other at DTV. Multiple slots The TriMedia architecture issues a VLIW instruction every clock cycle; each instruction includes up to five operations in dedicated slots within the long word. Compiler technology is used to minimize the "no op" slots and maximize throughput. The multislot scheme grew out of research into improving the instruction set, particularly in areas relevant to graphics processing, like data matrix manipulation. Attempts to do that resulted in some operations having three or four argument registers and/or two result registers, which is beyond the scope of a single slot. By allowing operations to occupy two or more slots, the functional units dedicated to each slot can connect to the multiple register-file read and write buses. According to an abstract of the Hot Chips paper, the overhead for adding this flexibility is almost zero in terms of cycle time and silicon area. Similarly, there is almost no overhead in a shared reference file. Multislot processing and the move to 64-bit word lengths represent two elements in a three-pronged strategy to raise VLIW performance. The third is improvements in process technology to increase clock frequency. Ron Baker, marketing program manager for TriMedia, said that while the second-generation TM-2XXX devices are at 0.25-micron process geometries, doubling performance over the first generation, third generation, chips will go to 0.18-micron CMOS and 300-MHz clock frequency.

To: John Rieman who wrote (34943)	8/5/1998 9:00:00 AM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

LSI Logic, Thakral. CUBE has been in this market for years. LSI Logic has a long way to go before it catches up...... LSI Logic, Thakral in China DVD kit project BEIJING, Aug 5 (Reuters) - U.S. chip maker LSI Logic Corp. and Singapore's Thakral Corp. Ltd have agreed to co-develop a digital video disc (DVD) manufacturing kit tailored to the Chinese market, the firms said on Wednesday. The kit, which will be made available to Chinese manufacturers in the fourth quarter, bundles hardware, software, debugging and testing tools and includes a DVD player drive made by Japan's Sanyo Technosound, the firms said in Beijing. In September, Thakral's plant in Shanghai will begin manufacturing the kits, which will enable Chinese OEMs and other makers to sell the DVD players for a retail price of less than 2,000 yuan ($240), they said. The new DVD technology offers higher video and audio quality than the video compact disc (VCD) format it is expected to replace, but the new players will play VCD 2.0 discs. "Chinese manufacturers have been looking for a way to convert to DVD not only to boost their margins but because implementing a global standard will enable them to develop an export market," Alain Bismuth, LSI Logic's director of consumer DVD products, said in a statement. VCD technology is widely used in China, where players cost as little as around $120 and are ubiquitous in urban homes, cafes and bars and on long-distance buses. Nearly 20 million VCD players are expected to be sold in China in 1998, industry sources say. Many of the movie titles available in China, both foreign and domestic, are pirated and sell for as little as $1.20. China's rampant piracy is a source of friction with its trade partners, but consumers have no other way to see most of the latest Hollywood titles because of strict state controls on the distribution of foreign films and outright bans of some titles. Thakral, which distributes consumer electronic products in China, would release some 300 titles of home entertainment software in DVD format this year, managing director Inderbethal Singh Thakral said in a statement. Also on Wednesday, the Silicon Valley-based LSI Logic launched a design facility in Beijing to enable Chinese manufacturers of digital home entertainment products to integrate the firms specialised semiconductors in DVDS, satellite television set-top boxes and digital cameras, LSI Logic said. ($1=8.3 yuan) -- Beijing Newsroom (86) 10-6532-1921; Fax (86) 10-6532-4978 -- Email: beijing.newsroomreuters.com