IMG SoCcer

[Ailuros]

And no it isn't soccer related as the forum here proposes

http://www.edatechforum.com/eda-topics/embedded/designing-socs—the-agonies-and-the-ecstasies/

Interesting read nonetheless.

 

[Lazy8s]

I don't know much about communication cores; why don't the UCCs support the n standard of WiFi?

The upgrades Imagination had to make to their tools and methodologies for design in the development of SoCcer, and the work in which they had to put balancing the bus and interconnects among a dual-mode CPU/DSP and a dual-core communications processor, should benefit their company-wide expertise.

With consumer electronics and appliances increasingly needing both intelligence and networking and with Imagination Technologies being among the first to push a SoC platform combining application and a full set of communication processors, this is a nice opportunity Imagination is giving to its META architecture for expanding its market share beyond digital radios.

 

[Ailuros]

I don't know much about communication cores; why don't the UCCs support the n standard of WiFi?

Do you mean the following paragraph?

What was not anticipated, however, was the need for our brand new Wi-Fi link to work in the madness of the CES show floor environment, live at an event that attracts more than 100,000 attendees and hundreds of technology companies as exhibitors. As the real-time video transfer demo first leapt into life on our stand, the data rate gradually degraded as other exhibitors switched on their Wi-Fi networks, as there were many more collisions and backoffs that we had expected.
However, thanks to an intense amount of late night debugging across time zones both in the U.K. and the U.S., the problem was identified as a system configuration issue. Once this was fixed, the demo was a major success thanks to some intensely focused system engineering—and intelligent negotiation across the hardware-software divide.

If yes, then your answer is highlighted above.

 

[tangey]

Do you mean the following paragraph?

No, he means the UCC specs only state that it can do a/b/g standards, not the 'n' standard.

 

[Arun]

The single-stream 802.11n standard (65-72Mbps depending on features) isn't significantly more expensive than 11a/g, apparently they can support it and it's just a software limitation - UCCP310 is claimed to be upgradable to it, and UCCP320 is claimed to support it natively along with Bluetooth.

This is a nice demo platform, and UCC has the major advantage of being able handle multiple simultaneous standards given enough processing power (increasable via clock rate and more cores presumably) but I'm far from convinced business-wise. Who's going to buy this thing?I don't think smaller players/startups or DVB-centric companies that want to extend to more standards along with WiFi could be extremely profitable. The probability that any of the connectivity 'big boys' (CSR, Broadcom, TI, Atheros) licenses is exactly zero, and there's practically no 65nm-or-below WiFi/Bluetooth RF IP available out there.

There is potentially one very good market for it, and that is CE-centric companies that want to integrate DVB/FM/WiFi for Digital TVs or the like. Not very exciting, but quite appealing financially if they can get enough deals. We'll see!

 

[roninja]

The article does mention a customer, so either a new licensee or an existing customer such as Frontier Silicon.

 

[Lazy8s]

Presumably, Pure's needs would've been considered in SoCcer's design, so Frontier Silicon isn't too far fetched.