Cores provide flexible VoIP solutions

MIPS Technologies has combined with D2 Technologies, HelloSoft, Radvision and Trinity Convergence to announce a low-cost solution for multichannel VoIP applications.

MIPS Technologies has combined with D2 Technologies, HelloSoft, Radvision and Trinity Convergence to announce a low-cost solution for multichannel VoIP applications, including VoIP residential gateways, IP phones, VoWLAN (voice over wireless LAN) phones and terminal adapters.

VoIP solutions enabled by MIPS Technologies, D2 Technologies, HelloSoft, Radvision, Trinity Convergence and other leading developers of communications software, offer semiconductor companies the highest performance available in a 32bit synthesisable processor core, giving them the flexibility to lower costs by implementing advanced VoIP capabilities on a single processor.

VoIP residential gateways, terminal adapters and IP phones traditionally use two processors - a host CPU to run the operating system and protocols, and a dedicated VoIP DSP for the codecs and other components - requiring separate development teams, using different toolsets.

Cost and time-to-market pressures demand more productive, single-CPU, solutions.

A MIPS32 24Kc core, for example, offers semiconductor companies more than enough performance to eliminate the DSP and subsume VoIP functionality into the host CPU, including four or more voice channels, while providing additional headroom for new features and services.

These third-party developer partners support MIPS-Based VoIP solutions with a variety of voice-related modules: speech codecs, including: G.711, G.729 A/B, G.723.1, and G.726; G.168-2000 compliant line echo cancellers and advanced telephony/speech processing modules; and a VOIP-related signalling and networking protocol stack, including SIP, MGCP, H.323, RTP and RTCP, to offer a complete VoIP solution based on MIPS CPUs.

"In cost-sensitive, high-volume markets, eliminating unnecessary hardware and tool chains can result in multi-million-dollar savings", said Russ Bell, Vice President of Marketing at MIPS Technologies.

"The combination of leading third-party VoIP software and the superior performance of MIPS processor cores gives semiconductor companies and OEMs a singular advantage in being able to reduce costs and speed development while giving consumers a superior VoIP product".

"The VoIP market offers significant growth opportunities, which will benefit greatly from high-performance, single-processor MIPS-based VoIP solutions that enable manufacturers to keep costs down while delivering advanced features and functionality for a richer user experience", said David Wong, President of D2 Technologies.

D2's vPort software is a complete VoIP software solution, optimised to run on the MIPS32 4Kc core.

Voice processing algorithms, traditionally run on a separate DSP, have been implemented in software as a "soft DSP" so that networking, signalling and voice processing functions all execute on a single RISC processor as one integrated solution, offering substantial advantages in cost and power over multicore or multichip VoIP products.

D2's field-proven voice software technology is processing billions of minutes of calls per month in products worldwide, thus assuring unsurpassed quality and reliability for MIPS-based VoIP products.

"The superior processing performance of MIPS cores, such as the 24K core family, together with HelloSoft's VoIP software, takes VoIP development to a whole new level, enabling developers of VoIP gateways, IP phones and analogue terminal adapters to leverage more performance and feature options, keep costs down and get to market fast", said Krishna Yarlagadda, CEO and President of HelloSoft.

The company's VoIP solution for the MIPS32 architecture is a complete and proven software reference design providing industry-leading performance for CPE devices such as IP phones, residential and SOHO gateways, terminal adapters and VoWLAN handsets.

It includes IP protocols such as H.323, SIP, MGCP and Megaco as well as DSP-less telephony modules such as G.711, G.723.1, G.726, G.729AB, GSM-AMR vocoders, acoustic and line echo cancellers, voice-activity detect, packet loss concealment etc.

HelloVoice software has been field-deployed and licensed by a number of semiconductor companies for MIPS-based wired and wireless solutions.

"MIPS Technologies is a leader in high-performance embedded processor IP, and we are delighted to support MIPS-based VoIP solutions, which will enable industry innovators to rapidly develop powerful, differentiated, cost-effective devices for this exciting and growing market", said Adi Paz, Senior Director of Product Management at Radvision.

Radvision provides tools, platforms and professional services that enable the development of voice and video communication products over a wide variety of IP and 3G protocols and operating systems, including those powered by MIPS processors.

Covering the entire range of IP and 3G protocols, such as H.323, SIP, MGCP, Megaco and 3G-324M, as well as delivering a comprehensive platform for the development of IP phones and IP-PBXs based on any protocol or OS, the Radvision developer architecture enables solution and equipment vendors to dramatically reduce development costs and increase their product's time to market.

"The combination of high-performance MIPS processors and our VeriCall Edge platform gives manufacturers a tremendous advantage in offering robust yet low-cost, DSP-free VoIP products", said Salim Bhatia, CEO of Trinity Convergence.

The company's VeriCall Edge software provides a complete, integrated VoIP software solution fully optimised for MIPS32-based cores and is the ideal technology to enable wired and wireless gateways, IP phones and analogue telephone adapters (ATAs).

It includes the principal VoIP functions with a flexible framework, including: G.711, G.723.1, G.726, G.729A/B, voice activity detect, packet loss concealment, acoustic and line echo cancellers, DTMF detect and generate, jitter buffer manager, RTP/RTCP/UDP/IP, and embedded call control stacks (SIP and H.323) on a single-chip solution.

The initial release of VeriCall Edge for MIPS32 cores is available under embedded Linux.

Future releases will support VxWorks, Symbian OS and Microsoft CE.NET.

MIPS Technologies' licensees including Centillium, Infineon, Toshiba and Texas Instruments currently provide VoIP solutions using a MIPS core as the host CPU.

"TI has developed a number of innovative and successful MIPS-Based VoIP products for customer premise equipment (CPE) gateways and IP phones", said Fred Zimmerman, Executive Director, Customer Premise Solutions, Texas Instruments' VoIP group.

"MIPS Technologies offers a key component in our VoIP system-on-a-chip products, and we value their ongoing efforts to raise performance to new heights and leverage that performance into the host CPU".

TI has been a MIPS Technologies licensee since 1999, when it became the first company to take a license for MIPS 32 and 64bit cores.

Its MIPS-based VoIP solutions enable manufacturers to rapidly create differentiated products for residential and enterprise applications.

TI's TNETV1050 IP phone processor, for example, was named Internet Telephony magazine's 2003 Product of the Year.

Demands on VoIP processing performance continue to increase as processors are required to simultaneously handle multiple voice channels.

Meanwhile, cost and time-to-market pressures continue unabated.

As the performance leader in the embedded industry, MIPS Technologies enables manufacturers to meet these challenges with low-cost, single-chip, multichannel VoIP solutions, and a range of design options.

MIPS synthesisable cores, from the 233MHz 4K to the highest-performance 625MHz 24K family, enable SoC designers to configure for performance, power, area and other options.

If additional performance is required, the CorExtend capability allows them to accelerate application performance by creating user-defined instructions, using standard software tools.

In addition, customers will soon be able to take advantage of the recently announced DSP ASE (application-specific extension), which will be available in various MIPS cores in 2005.

Supported by a complete suite of software development tools, it will enable SoC designers to simplify their design environment and lower system cost by migrating DSP functionality onto a MIPS-based host processor.

MIPS-based VoIP solutions are available today for licensing.

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