Power.org Member Rapport Incorporated Previews New Energy Efficient Chip Design7 April 2006
At the Embedded Systems Conference here today,Power.org member Rapport Incorporated andIBM previewed a breakthrough energy-efficient processor design, theKilocore1025, which will feature 1,024 eight-bit processing elementstogether with a PowerPC™ core on a single, low-cost chip.
Rapport and IBM are collaborating to utilize Power Architecture technologyto provide high-performance processing with extremely low energyconsumption. The result is expected to be one of the most energy-efficientprocessor designs of its kind.
Based on Rapport's Kilocore™ technology and IBM's Power Architecture™technology, Rapport'snext-generation Kilocore1025 chip will process information at higher speedsand orders of magnitude lower power than existing processors.
Rapport's current offering, the KC256, features 256 processing elements,provides more than 25 gigabyte operations/second at well under a singlewatt of power, and is available with tools and a development platform.
Kilocore-based processors address the shortcomings of conventional chips byputting hundreds or thousands of parallel processing elements together onsmall chips. These chips feature the most advanced, dynamic architectureavailable today in working silicon and can be dynamically reconfiguredfor compute-intensive applications, including mobile gaming, homelandsecurity, server components, image processing, consumer electronics andsuitcase supercomputing.
For example, with the Kilocore1025, a user will be able to view streaminglive- and high-definition video on a low-power, mobile device at five to 10times the speed of existing processors.
The IBM and Rapport collaboration is expected to bring disruptive solutionsto the low-power computing marketplace. Rapport, an emerging SiliconValley-based startup, will be contributing innovative software solutions aswell as its unique Kilocore technology, and IBM will be providingworld-class engineering services, foundry and ASIC technologies.
"IBM's openness and flexibility in working with Rapport and recognizing theunrivaled value of our Kilocore technology has been tremendous," said FrankSinton, Rapport's President. "We couldn't have built this relationshipwithout Power.org. Combining theoutstanding Power Architecture with Kilocore will open up Power's extensiveapplication base and developer community to the world of handheld, mobileand in-the-field computing."
"Through collaboration, Power.org iscreating unprecedented opportunities for its members," said Nigel Beck,vice president, Technology Marketing, IBM Technology CollaborationSolutions, and Chairman of Power.org. "Newcollaborative efforts with Power.orgmembers like Rapport will continue to deliver innovations in processordesign."
Members expanding Power Architecture ecosystem
Other Power.org members developingtechnology on open specifications and expanding the Power Architectureecosystem with new technologies include:
IBM, a founder-level member of Power.org,announced new low-power extensions to its PowerPC 970MP offering. Thesenewest offerings complement IBM's low-power 970FX offering and targetclients whose applications demand higher performance but are limited bypower constraints. Featuring sub 25-watt typical power for dual 64-bitprocessors with dual single instruction multiple data (SIMD) units, theofferings remove the power barrier for a broad set of compute-intensiveapplications, such as medical imaging. IBM also announced power managementfeatures for the CPC945 bridge chip. Supporting single, dual and quadprocessor applications, the CPC945 now offers power management optionsenabling total power as low as 12 watts. These power efficient offeringsprovide clients with great flexibility in their system designs by reducingthe trade-off of performance versus power across a broader set ofapplications.
Teak Technologies. a venture capital-backed company which chairs the Power.org technical subcommittee on high-speedpacket interconnects, has developed a deterministic packet switchingsolution that provides reliable service guarantees while managingcongestion and maximizing bandwidth. Teak's products leverage PowerArchitecture technology and stand to enhance the BladeCenter ecosystem,including the Cell Broadband Engine-based blade infrastructure.
Thales Computers, a Power.org member, iscommitted to building systems for severe environmental conditions using thelow-power 970FX offering.
About Power.org
Power.org is a community of companiesdriving innovation around Power Architecture technology. Comprised ofleaders in the technology field, Power.orgis a framework through which its members engage in collaborative innovationon Power Architecture technology, with the mission of optimizinginteroperability and accelerating innovation to drive increased adoption ofthis technology around the world. Power.orgcurrently has more than 40 members, including Founder members CadenceDesign Systems, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, FreescaleSemiconductor, IBM, Jabil Circuit, Novell, P.A. Semi, Red Hat, Synopsys,and Thales. For more details on Power.org,visit the website www.power.org
Media Contact:Rick BauseIBM Media Relations845-892-5463rbause@us.ibm.com
SOURCE: IBM
Source: marketwire
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