EEMBC Journal - Spring 2002 NEWS FROM EMBEDDED MICROPROCESSOR BENCHMARK CONSORTIUM www.eembc.org In this issue 1. Letter from the President 2. FROM THE LAB: It's 9:00 p.m. do you know what your compiler is doing? 3. New EEMBC Benchmark Scores 4. EEMBC Welcomes New Members _________________ 1. As the competition becomes fiercer, EEMBC's value grows exponentially. Two years ago, at the height of the market, EEMBC's biggest problem was cajoling its members into publishing certified benchmark scores for their products. Today, with the long-awaited recovery still not quite "visible," the EEMBC Certification Labs is cranking out certifications right and left to accommodate the demands of members who are clamoring to have their processors, DSPs, and compilers certified now. At first, it may seem paradoxical that in the first quarter of 2002, more certified EEMBC benchmark scores were published than in all of 2000. In the prosperous days of two years ago, one might have expected that there would be more time for such luxuries as testing products against industry-standard benchmarks. What's changed is that objective and meaningful benchmark scores are no longer a luxury. They're a necessity for the component specifiers at OEMs who are more than ever putting their jobs on the line when they recommend which processor will become the brains of their companies' products. And this is making it a necessity for anyone selling processors, DSPs, or compilers to back up marketing claims with verifiable measures of product performance. Viewed in this context, it's not surprising that EEMBC was more in evidence than ever at this year's Embedded Processor Forum, held April 29 through May 3 in San Jose. Particularly striking was ARM Ltd.'s introduction of its new ARM1026EJ-S processor core, which was optimized in large part using EEMBC benchmarks in the design stage to deliver improved real-world application performance. Adding to the EEMBC buzz, ARM simultaneously announced benchmark scores for its ARM1020E in all five EEMBC application areas, ARC International announced telecomm scores for the ARCtangent-A4, Imsys A.B. announced office automation scores for the Imsys Cjip, and Intrinsity announced telecomm scores for the FastMath processor. Hard times for the industry have also brought a growth spurt in EEMBC's membership. We're pleased to welcome Aplix, ChipWrights, IAR, StarCore, SuperH, Symbian, and Tao Group as new members who have joined the consortium since the beginning of this year, bringing our total membership to more than 50 companies. Each of these suppliers has its unique focus, but all will enjoy access to the benchmark source code, use of EEMBC benchmarks for internal validation of their architectures, and the ability to show customers unbiased, non-proprietary scores that have been independently verified by ECL - all benefits of EEMBC membership that are quickly becoming standard requirements for conducting business in the embedded world. Markus Levy _________________ 2. FROM THE LAB: It's 9:00 p.m. do you know what your compiler is doing? EEMBC benchmarks solve a great many problems in the industry: They allow customers who purchase embedded processors, intellectual property/cores, and compilers to obtain, free of charge, certified (and hence trustworthy) benchmark scores that they can use to gauge performance (thereby shortening processor selection, and hence total design time). They give embedded processor and compiler companies real-world, industry-standard code to help "improve the breed." While companies debate business models, and whether or not the embedded processor industry is undergoing fundamental shifts (for example, towards IP cores), everyone without exception agrees that software tools are as important to the customer, and the design win, as performance. A second area of great consensus is that compilers (and other such tools) are "part of the architecture" and require a great deal of attention, focus, and effort in order to give customers ways to extract close-to-maximum performance with greatly reduced effort. Until now, there hasn't been a good way to evaluate the quality and functionality of software tools. That's why ECL created ECL First Impressions. ECL First Impressions evaluates these software and software/hardware components with an eye towards the "out of the box" experience that real customers will find useful. Compilers, linkers, debuggers, assemblers, user interfaces, documentation, even technical support and web support are critically evaluated. ECL uses this information to produce an extensive, confidential report of its findings, delivered to the vendor. If the vendor meets certain standards, we issue an ECL Tested! Seal of Approval. This Seal can be used on packaging and in marketing, indicating a vendor's commitment to quality. It also tends to remove the issue of software tools quality from the table during product design-ins! This is an invaluable service that is raising the bar on software tool quality across the industry. Some companies really want a good idea about how they stack up against competitors - either in their class, or in general. ECL also performs Competitive Analysis, and because we see more tools than anyone else on Earth, we can tell you best practices, strengths, and weaknesses. Companies that desire significantly more detailed analysis have been selecting ECL Deep Impressions, where ECL actively helps vendors demonstrably improve all aspects of their offerings. Typically a 3- to 12-month engagement, ECL Deep Impressions results in the ECL Certified! Seal of Approval being granted for use on packaging and in marketing. EEMBC benchmarks take care of the "how fast is the part" question. ECL Impressions takes care of the "... and how good are the tools?" issues. For more details, go to ECL Impressions Software Testing and Product Analysis http://www.ebenchmarks.com/impressions.html. _________________ 3. New EEMBC Benchmark Scores Certified EEMBC benchmark scores on the following devices are available for free download from the Search Benchmark Scores area on the EEMBC web site. Click on the individual category and go directly to the score on the EEMBC website. ARC ARCtangent-A4 Telecomm scores Out-of-the-Box http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=220&Cer tificationType=OUT Optimized http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=221&Cer tificationType=OPT ARM ARM1020E Scores based on simulation Out-of-the-Box *Automotive/Industrial http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=297&Cer tificationType=OUT *Consumer http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=300&Cer tificationType=OUT *Networking http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=298&Cer tificationType=OUT *Office Automation http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=299&Cer tificationType=OUT *Telecomm http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=223&Cer tificationType=OUT intrinsity FastMATH F14M902 Telecomm scores Out-of-theBox http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=303 Optimized http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=309&Cer tificationType=OPT Imsys Cjip Office automation scores Out-of-theBox http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=301 Optimized http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=312&Cer tificationType=OPT NEC VR5500 with Red Hat GNU Compiler Out-of-the-Box, 32-bit external bus *Automotive/Industrial http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=281&Cer tificationType=OUT *Consumer http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=282&Cer tificationType=OUT *Networking http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=283&Cer tificationType=OUT *Office Automation http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=284&Cer tificationType=OUT *Telecomm http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=285&Cer tificationType=OUT Out-of-the-Box, 64-bit external bus *Automotive/Industrial http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=276&Cer tificationType=OUT *Consumer http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=276&Cer tificationType=OUT *Networking http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=284&Cer tificationType=OUT *Office Automation http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=279&Cer tificationType=OUT *Telecomm http://www.eembc.org/benchmark/score/ScoreReportWin.asp?BenchmarkSeq=280&Cer tificationType=OUT _________________ 4. EEMBC Welcomes New Members EEMBC extends a warm welcome to new members Aplix, ChipWrights, IAR, StarCore, SuperH, Symbian, and Tao Group. Joining EEMBC as a full member of the Consortium's Board of Directors is SuperH, Inc. Formed following an agreement between Hitachi and STMicroelectronics, SuperH is an independent company chartered with developing and licensing RISCmicroprocessor cores of the SuperHT family and boosting their proliferation in embedded microprocessor applications. SuperH owns all intellectual property rights for SH-4 and subsequent generations of SuperH technology and focuses on developing, licensing, and supporting its intellectual property and generating revenue from license fees and royalties. http://www.superh.com Joining EEMBC's Embedded Java Subcommittee, Aplix has been a Sun licensee since 1996. Aplix has used its extensive experience to create a Java platform known as JBlend which has been embedded into more than 5 million products, including Sanyo Electric's Digital Image Album, Sony's MD DISCAM, and a wide range of cell phones. http://www.jblend.com/en/ ChipWrights has joined EEMBC as a member of the Consumer Subcommittee. A provider of digital signal processing (DSP) technology, ChipWrights' flagship product is the CWvx is a high-performance, highly scalable architecture targeted at mobile image and video processing applications. http://www.chipwrights.com IAR Systems joins EEMBC as a third-party tools member, specifically in the Automotive/Industrial subcommittee. IAR software development tools support a large number of chip architectures and consist of C and EC++ compilers in the IAR Embedded WorkbenchT development environment, the device driver wizard IAR MakeAppT, and the IAR visualSTATER graphic programming tool. http://www.iar.com. Agere Systems has reassigned its EEMBC membership to the StarCore alliance. StarCore is an alliance between Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector and Agere Systems. StarCore develops DSP core technology, delivering its cores to the platform organizations of the two companies where they are supported for business unit SOC design. In addition, the company is developing tools and methodologies based on advanced compiler techniques and architectures that are well suited as compiler targets to help speed time to market for customers of Agere Systems and Motorola. http://www.starcore-dsp.com Symbian, a software licensing company owned by Ericsson, Nokia, Matsushita (Panasonic), Motorola, Psion and Sony Ericsson, has joined EEMBC as an Embedded Java Subcommittee member. The company supplies the Symbian OS open standard operating system for data-enabled mobile phones, including the Nokia 9200 Series Communicator, the Nokia 7650 imaging phone, and Sony Ericsson's P800 smartphone. http://www.symbian.com Tao Group, which joins EEMBC as an Embedded Java subcommittee member, has developed intentR, a binary portable, language independent, high performance, multimedia platform that is now used by many of the world's leading OEMs in their client products for home and mobile networks. intent is also a core piece of technology in the Open Contents Platform Association (OCPA), launched successfully in Japan this year. http://www.tao-group.com _________________ If you do not wish to receive e-mail from EEMBC, you can un-subscribe by accessing the following link: http://www.eembc.org/asp/unsubscribe.asp. EEMBC sends no more than one e-mail per month to registered users at www.eembc.org. 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