Virage Logic intros ultra compact and low power ARC 601 32-bit microprocessor core

FREMONT, USA: Virage Logic Corp. today announced the availability of its new ARC 601 32-bit microprocessor core, which offers the best-in-class combination of small size and low power with excellent performance.

The ARC 601 runs at 532MHz (1.2 DMIPS/MHz), consuming just 13 µW/MHz in 65-nanometer (nm) process technology and at only 0.039mm2, the ARC 601 will fit 2.5 times into the size of the dot (12 point font) at the end of a sentence. The processor is available today and has already been licensed to several of Virage Logic’s lead customers.

“This new 32-bit ARC processor offers more than twice the performance of the ARM Cortex-M0 at a comparable size and power1, and better performance, size and power than the MIPS M14K2 or Tensilica Xtensa 83,” said Dr. Yankin Tanurhan, vice president and general manager of Virage Logic’s Processor Solutions and NVM business units.

“The ARC 601 is ideal for microcontroller replacement and deeply embedded applications, and was designed based on the industry standard ARC 600 family that has been in production for several years and taped out hundreds of times.”

This is the first ARC processor Virage Logic has brought to market since its acquisition of ARC International. The acquisition has extended Virage Logic’s ability to serve the global semiconductor market by complementing its existing portfolio of highly differentiated physical and standards-based advanced semiconductor IP with ARC’s widely accepted microprocessor cores, which are a significant segment of the semiconductor IP market.

Modern System-on-Chip (SoC) integrated circuits require multiple 32-bit processors and the ARC 601 offers outstanding performance and is smaller and lower power than competing cores.

Designers can tailor the highly configurable ARC 601 to meet their specific application needs and exclude processor features that are not required, further reducing area, power consumption and cost. The processor’s single-cycle ICCM (Instruction Closely Coupled Memory) and DCCM (Data Closely Coupled Memory) optimize embedded performance while minimizing the overall system footprint.

The ARC 601 is also extensible with user-defined instructions and register settings that can deliver a performance boost of five to 100 times for critical routines.

The ARC 601 features the size-optimized ARCompact 16-/32-bit Instruction Set Architecture that reduces code size by as much as 40 percent. This makes it an ideal solution for deeply embedded applications or for upgrading 8-bit and 16-bit microcontroller applications to 32-bit performance where small size and low power are essential. The ARC 601 is instruction set compatible with all of the processors in the ARC 600 and ARC 700 families.

The ultra compact and low power 32-bit ARC 601 processor is supported by a full suite of development tools. This includes the acclaimed MetaWare Development Kit (v8.4.0) that generates highly efficient code that is ideal for deeply embedded applications, the ARC simulators including xCAM (v2.1.7) and xISS (v3.1), and the ARChitect configuration tool (v2.14.79). All of the tools needed for development with the new ARC 601 are available now.

Targeted at audio, imaging, portable, storage, consumer, wireless and security applications, the 32-bit ARC 601 processor core is available now.