Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: Cypress Semiconductor | Subject: West Bridge
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 28 November 2006
Bridging the gap to embedded
communications
Devices in the new West Bridge family of peripheral controllers function as a companion chip to an embedded central processing unit to free it from data-intensive operations.
Cypress Semiconductor Corp has developed a novel architecture for dedicated peripheral controllers that serve as functional bridges to rapidly evolving interface standards and provide high-performance, optimised data paths for a wide range of embedded applications Cypress also announced the first product based on this new architecture, a peripheral controller designed to optimise data throughput in multimedia handsets
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 28 Nov 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Controller accelerates handset-PC interfacing
Controller provides the highest-performance handset-to-PC connection for rapid transfers of music files, photos and videos.
West Bridge controller cuts Flash media costs
Controller supports up to 16 MLC NAND Flash devices, which cost approximately three times less than single-level cell NAND Flash devices for the same storage density.
Devices in the new West Bridge family of peripheral controllers function as a companion chip to an embedded central processing unit (CPU) to free it from data-intensive operations.
In the same way the North Bridge and South Bridge were introduced in the PC architecture to enable the main CPU to evolve independently from quickly changing memory and peripheral interfaces, embedded systems are evolving towards a similar architecture, where a West Bridge device manages the interfaces and offloads from the main CPU specific peripheral-to-peripheral traffic.
"West Bridge, the latest high-performance, programmable solution from Cypress, maximises system performance and eases system design", said Dinesh Ramanathan, Executive Vice President of Cypress's Data Communications Division.
"As a way to enable our customers to keep pace with changing interface standards, we plan to roll out a new version of these devices every nine months and a new generation of controllers every 18 months".
The West Bridge family is based on Cypress's Simultaneous Link to Independent Multimedia (SLIM) architecture, which manages multiple, dedicated paths between peripherals, memory and the processor to allow maximum data throughput.
In addition to providing a path to interfaces not supported by the main processor, the SLIM architecture allows direct and independent data transfer from one interface to another, offloading the main CPU, and freeing up its resources for higher system performance.
The first member of the family, the West Bridge Antioch controller, uses the SLIM architecture to provide a direct path in mobile handsets from High-Speed USB 2.0 to mass storage (NAND, SD, MMC, HDD) for rapid transfers of music files, photos and videos.
• Cypress Semiconductor: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
