Cores to control broadband access advances

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team May 26, 2004

Realtek Semiconductor Corp has licensed a wide range of high-performance MIPS32 processor cores which will form the basis for its continued penetration of the high-growth broadband access market.

Realtek Semiconductor Corporation, one of Taiwan's leading fabless semiconductor companies, has licensed a wide range of high-performance MIPS32 processor cores which will form the basis for the company's continued penetration of the high-growth broadband access market.

Realtek's multicore licence comprises Pro versions for the 24Kc, M4K, 4KEp, 4KEm and 4KEc cores.

By leveraging the CorExtend capability of MIPS Technologies' Pro Series of cores, Realtek's development team can add their own instructions and functionality to their MIPS-based SoCs, while maintaining compatibility with the MIPS32 architecture.

This will help reduce Realtek's overall development costs and speed their design to market by allowing the company's engineers to use the broad range of optimised software, IP and tools that form the MIPS ecosystem.

Within the broadband access market, the MIPS architecture has commanding market positions in areas such as cable, ADSL and VDSL modems and WLAN products.

"We are aggressively developing SoCs for a variety of applications where high performance is required to support more functionality, faster data streams, better security features and changing standards".

"We chose to standardise upon the MIPS architecture for its industry-leading performance, and because the CorExtend functionality gives us the ability to accelerate specific algorithms and create unique, highly differentiated, cost-effective solutions using standard embedded software tools", said Alex Chiu, CEO of Realtek Semiconductor.

"Using their licences for our 32bit microprocessors, Realtek can leverage the MIPS architecture's superior performance and flexibility to develop differentiated, low cost solutions for the broadband market", said John Bourgoin, President and CEO of MIPS Technologies.

"Realtek is the latest industry leader in the Greater China region to adopt the MIPS architecture for SoC development".

"We look forward to working with Realtek to ensure our companies' mutual success".