K-MICRO NEWS
Press Releases
K-micro in the News
Upcoming Tradeshows
Press Releases
K-MICRO LICENSES CEVA’S 90-NM 3.0 GBPS SERIAL ATA TECHNOLOGY TO ENABLE TOPAZ SUB-SYSTEM FOR STORAGE APPLICATIONS
Complete 3.0 Gbps SATA Solution Speeds Time-to-Market and Lowers Development Costs for Next Generation
Storage Applications
SAN JOSE, Calif. - November 7, 2005 - K-micro, a leader in advanced yet affordable ASIC technology, and CEVA Inc., (NASDAQ: CEVA; LSE: CVA), the leading licensor of digital signal processors (DSP) cores, multimedia, GPS and storage platforms to the semiconductor industry, announced today that K-micro has licensed CEVA’s fully-compliant 3.0Gbps Serial ATA technology. Licensing CEVA’s SATA technology will enable K-micro to create a version of its revolutionary Topaz sub-system for storage applications. K-micro’s customers also will be able to include CEVA’s SATA technology in their traditional 90nm ASICs.
K-micro’s Topaz sub-systems are essentially a system-on-a-chip, containing processors, memory controllers, encryption engines, internal busses, etc. To create an SoC for their application, customers merely need to add their proprietary logic to the computing subsystem, greatly simplifying their engineering efforts and speeding up their products’ time-to-market. K-micro’s vision is to create versions of Topaz for different applications, such as computing and storage.
CEVA’s 90nm Serial ATA 3.0Gbps PHY has one of the lowest power consumption profiles of any SATA PHY solution available on the market, requiring less than 150mW per-channel. Occupying an area of less than 1.9 square mm for a two-channel configuration, the CEVA PHY offers a highly efficient solution that can be used in either host or device mode and, if necessary, can be replicated to create solutions with four, eight or more channels. When combined with CEVA’s own protocol layers, leveraging CEVA’s SATA IP is a very cost effective way to acquire a fully-compliant, silicon-proven SATA solution for ASIC designs.
K-micro’s licensing of CEVA’s 3.0Gbps Serial ATA solution demonstrates the ongoing success of the collaboration between the two companies. In 2004, K-micro licensed and qualified CEVA’s 1.5Gbps SATA for its 130nm ASIC intellectual property (IP) portfolio and brought it to full production. CEVA has proven that its 1.5Gbps SATA IP is fully interoperable with leading Serial ATA drives including Seagate Barracuda®, Western Digital® WD Raptor® and Maxtor® MaXLine® drives.
“CEVA’s 1.5Gbps SATA IP performed exactly as specified, and we received excellent support during our qualification and integration of the IP into our ASIC portfolio,” said Sunil Baliga, vice-president of marketing and business development at K-micro. “When it came to choosing a partner for our second generation 3.0Gbps SATA, CEVA was the natural choice. We believe K-micro’s Topaz with a 3.0Gbps SATA interface will be well-received by customers.”
“We are very pleased that K-micro has again chosen to license CEVA communications IP,” said John Ryan, VP and general manager of the Communications Business Unit, CEVA Inc. “We believe K-micro’s Topaz sub-system for storage applications will prove to be a very compelling solution for customers. This new licensing agreement further underlines the quality of our Serial ATA IP and is testimony to the excellence in service and commitment we provide to our customers.”
About CEVA, Inc.
Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., CEVA is the leading licensor of DSP cores, multimedia, GPS, and storage
platforms to the semiconductor industry. CEVA licenses a family of programmable DSP cores, associated
SoC system platforms and a portfolio of application platforms including video processing, audio and speech
processing, GPS location, Serial-ATA (SATA), and serial communications. In 2004, CEVA's Silicon IP was shipped
in more than 100 million devices. CEVA was created through the merger of the DSP licensing division of DSP
Group and Parthus Technologies. For more information visit www.ceva-dsp.com
About K-micro (Kawasaki Microelectronics)
K-micro is a leader in advanced yet affordable ASIC technology. The company’s innovative technologies
and world-class design support are used in the consumer electronics, computer, office-automation, networking
and storage markets. The company is an active participant in industry standards organizations, including
the Wi-Fi Alliance, Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), USB Implementers
Forum, MPEG Industry Forum (MPEGIF), Mobile Computing Promotion Consortium (MCPC), the Digital Display Working
Group (DDWG), SD Card Association (SDA) and OCP International Partnership (OCP-IP). K-micro has design centers
in Boston, San Jose, Taipei, and Tokyo. For more information, contact the company at 408-570-0555, or visit http://www.k-micro.us/.
# # #
K-micro Press Contact:
CEVA
Richard Kingston
CEVA, Inc
408-514-2900
richard.kingston@ceva-dsp.com
Sacha Arts
Slider & Associates
408-356-3099
sacha@sliderassociates.com