"Internet everywhere" and the META saga

[Ailuros]

It's nothing particularly new that IMG intended to market its META cores more actively for embedded devices:

http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?NewsID=498

The META Connected Processor™ family will combine Imagination’s innovative META multithreaded processor and ENSIGMA multi-standard programmable communications technologies, fully optimised for low power and high performance under all operating conditions. As a result of this development, these technologies, which are already successful in consumer broadcast markets, will now be able to be used in new lower end markets such as digital photo-frames, media streamers/players, printers, toys and connected cameras.

http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?NewsID=496

For too long chip designers have stuck to traditional concepts of CPU-based SoC design, which is increasingly not appropriate for the levels of system integration we’re now seeing in SoCs. Embedded processors – whether running applications under Linux or highly optimised DSP algorithms - now need to be much more effective in ensuring every clock cycle counts to minimise power and maximise performance, Based on our years of experience of embedding META processors in many of our SoC IP cores and customer SoC designs, as well as our work with many of the world’s most advanced SoC vendors integrating our high performance multimedia and communications engines with every major CPU architecture, we’ve built on the core strengths of our unique META processor architecture to meet the needs of SoCs far better than traditional CPUs for today’s low power, high performance connected multimedia age.

META cores are capable of up to 1GHz operation on a 40G process, for a synthesised core. All the META cores are fully synthesisable using readily available standard libraries. Imagination is offering all members of the META Series2 family of SoC processors for licensing now.

I wonder what else is new in that generation.

ooopps edit just noticed...

META HTPhas optional double precision IEEE 754-2008 compliant floating point and 64-bit internal buses, loading a 64-bit word in a single cycle.

...well I'll be damned....

 

[Lazy8s]

Judging by the apparent high utilization of processor resources achieved within other IP families of Imgtec, I'm inclined to believe their philosophy of multithreading and superthreading everything.

On a somewhat related note, Imgtec is also focusing on advancing the tools/software side.
http://eetimes.eu/uk/221900867

 

[Ailuros]

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Ar...ets-lte-mobiles-with-arm-cortex-processor.htm

 

[Lazy8s]

Yeah, I saw that.

After going so long without designing a true mobile successor to their SH-4 SuperH CPU line and after acquiring the rights to include ARM designs in their SuperH SoCs for the interests of their customers, I had figured Renesas were about to switch to ARM as their primary CPU.