Broadcom to use 64bit MIPS core in set-top boxes

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jul 19, 2001

Broadcom has taken a license for several additional MIPS products, including the new MIPS64 5Kf core.

Broadcom has taken a license for several additional MIPS products, including the new MIPS64 5Kf core.

Broadcom plans to use the 5Kf core, the industry's only licensable, synthesisable 64bit core with an integrated floating-point unit in its SoC solutions for set-top boxes and other communications products.

The company also acquired the rights to two application-specific extensions (ASEs) to the MIPS architecture, the MIPS-3D and MDMX ASEs, which offer a cost-efficient way to accelerate graphics and media processing.

In addition, Broadcom has taken a license for the MIPS64 architecture, which the company is using to develop extremely high-performance, power-efficient, broadband network processors and standalone CPUs.

"MIPS is the de facto standard in set-top boxes due in large part to industry-leading products like the 5Kf core, which will enable us to give our customers the performance and power efficiency they need for their next-generation set-top boxes and other broadband communications products", said Tim Lindenfelser, vice president and general manager of the Broadband Communications Business Unit at Broadcom, which has been a MIPS licensee since 1998.

"Broadcom made a strategic commitment to the MIPS architecture when we adopted it as our 32 and 64bit processor standard.

It meets the extreme performance and power requirements that leading-edge broadband processors demand, it has the support of hundreds of software development tools, and it allows us to be very cost-efficient".

"Broadcom's SoC design expertise in power and performance, together with MIPS Technologies' expertise in 64bit architecture, give the broadband market a winning combination that meets the never-ending demand for higher performance at lower power and low cost", said Derek Meyer, vice president of worldwide field operations at MIPS Technologies.

"Convergence products like advanced set-top boxes, as well as the broadband networks that support them, demand a level of performance that only a 64bit processor can provide, and we are delighted to help a world-class company like Broadcom make that happen".