UMC First Foundry to Offer SuperH, Inc. Microprocessor Core
Customers Can Now Utilize UMC's 130nm CMOS Process for the Production of Designs Featuring SH-4 32-bit Cores
HSINCHU, Taiwan & SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 24,
2002--UMC (NYSE:UMC - news) a world leading semiconductor foundry, and
SuperH, Inc., a leading independent global IP provider that develops
and licenses 32-bit and 64-bit RISC microprocessor cores for the open
market, today announced that UMC is the first pureplay semiconductor
foundry to offer SuperH(TM) IP cores to the companies' mutual
customers.
The SH4-200 series, 32-bit RISC microprocessor cores designed for
the open market are currently ready to be proven on UMC's 130nm
process technology and are available to customers through the
foundry's comprehensive Gold IP(TM) program.
As a result of the agreement, semiconductor and system companies
will have access to silicon verified SH-4 cores, through UMC, for use
in system-on-chip integrated circuits. The process-optimized-fixed
cores can also be easily combined with UMC's vast offering of
compatible libraries and IP elements.
"SuperH SH-4 customers can now proceed quickly to market using
UMC's renowned foundry expertise," said Rick Chapman, vice president
of marketing and sales for SuperH, Inc. "This alliance with UMC also
signifies broad market acceptance of the SuperH architecture."
The SH-4 RISC processor core has been designed into integrated
circuits used in the automotive, digital consumer and residential
gateway markets. The SH-4 core is widely supported by third-party
hardware development tools, compiler chains and operating systems and
features a 16-bit fixed length instruction set for excellent code
efficiency.
The 266 MHz SH-4 core features a powerful single- and
double-precision IEEE754-compliant floating point unit (FPU). The FPU
can make 4 single-precision vector/matrix calculations for superior
handling of floating point signal processing algorithms and 3D
graphics in gaming and car navigation applications.
Tai Sheng Feng, vice president and division director of Design
Services for UMC said, "SuperH has demonstrated broad appeal for its
microprocessor cores for a wide range of semiconductor markets. As
such, we are pleased to offer this IP resource for our 130nm process
technology to our mutual customers through our Gold IP program."
The SH4-200 series provides low-power, high-performance solutions
in a range of price and performance options. Features of the SH4-200
series include:
- 2-way set associative 16KB instruction cache, 32KB operand
cache
- Fully-associative TLB memory management unit
- SuperHyway Bus providing wide bandwidth with 2.1GB/s
- High-performance 2-way superscalar architecture
- High-density 16-bit instruction set
- Powerful 4-way FPU providing 1.9GFLOPS at 266 MHz
- Power consumption, less than 1mW/MHz at 266 MHz/1.2V
About SuperH, Inc.
SuperH, Inc., was established as an independent company in 2001
following an agreement between STMicroelectronics and Hitachi to
create an independently managed entity to develop processor cores for
the open market.
The high-performance, low-cost power efficient SH-4 core, is
targeted at the next generation digital consumer, automotive and
telecommunications applications. Earlier this year SuperH released the
SH5-100 series core expanding the portfolio of licensable IP offered
by SuperH, Inc.
In the future, SuperH, Inc. will develop all subsequent SuperH
cores to the open market, including the development of the SH-6 and
SH-7 cores.
The SuperH family of high-performance 32-bit and 64-bit RISC-based
processor cores is ideally suited for applications that require a
highly integrated system-on-chip solution that includes a powerful
embedded processing engine and can run a wide variety of application
software on industry-standard operating systems and middleware.
SuperH processors are used in many fields including digital
consumer products such as set-top boxes, and digital cameras and games
platforms; factory automation systems and car information systems.
Further information about SuperH products can be found on
www.superh.com.
About UMC
UMC (NYSE:UMC, TSE:2303) is a world-leading semiconductor
foundry that manufactures advanced process ICs for applications
spanning every major sector of the semiconductor industry. UMC
delivers the cutting-edge foundry technologies that enable
sophisticated system-on-chip (SOC) designs, including 130nm (0.13um)
copper/low k, embedded DRAM, and mixed signal/RFCMOS.
In addition, UMC is a leader in 300mm manufacturing with three
strategically located 300mm fabs to serve our global customer base:
Fab 12A in Taiwan, UMCi in Singapore (completion in early 2002), and
AU Pte. Ltd., a joint venture facility with AMD that is also located
in Singapore (production in 2005).
UMC employs over 8,500 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan,
Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on
the web at http://www.umc.com.
SuperH(TM) is a trade mark of Hitachi, Ltd.
Gold IP is a trademark of UMC. All other trademarks and registered
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Contact:
SuperH, Inc. (US)
Roy Bumsted: 212/686-0131
Mary Jane Reiter: 408/725-1239
maryjane@dunwoodie.com
or
SuperH (UK), Ltd.
Ewan Davy or Alice Hindle:
44-(0)117-9227799
Robert Fenner: 44-(0)207-2555417
or
SuperH (Japan), Ltd.
Takao Nakane or Tsuneo Funabashi:
81-(0)42-359-6331
or
UMC
by
KJ Communications
Eileen Elam, 650/917-1488
kjcome@cs.com
or
UMC
In Taiwan:
Alex Hinnawi, (886) 2-2700-6999 ext. 6958
alex_hinnawi@umc.com
