Virage Logic continues to broaden semiconductor IP offering

FREMONT, USA: Virage Logic Corp. announced the further broadening of its already extensive semiconductor IP product offering with the introduction of a new portfolio of processor peripheral IP including UART, USART, GPIO, SPI, I2C, General Purpose Timer, and Watchdog Timer cores.

The new portfolio of production proven cores is the first offering resulting from Virage Logic’s acquisition of NXP’s advanced horizontal CMOS IP product lines in November 2009. These new cores, the first in a continuing series expected to be announced this year, come with test benches that help simplify SoC verification and software drivers that ease the development of processor programs to accelerate the system-on-chip (SoC) development process.

"Since our acquisition of the NXP processor peripherals group late last year, we have invested in productizing the entire portfolio of silicon proven devices," said Mike Thompson, director of product marketing for Processor and SoC Solutions at Virage Logic.

"The release of the new cores further underscores Virage Logic’s role as a single source trusted IP provider of an ever growing product portfolio. As the first in a series of subsystem and infrastructure IP that will be released this year, we are broadening our ability to provide an even larger part of the total solution today’s SoC designers require to meet their increasingly challenging time to market and profitability goals."

According to Richard Wawrzyniak, senior market analyst at Semico: "As the percent of IP reuse increases, so too does the number of IP blocks being used in each design. An increasing number of these IP blocks consist of non-CPU or memory functions, such as communication interfaces, analog blocks, etc. Perhaps the greatest driver of this trend is the simple fact that in order for designers to be able to complete their designs on time, they must use IP they know works and comes from a trusted source."

These new peripheral cores ideally fit the needs of market segments where Virage Logic is already a leading supplier. One such market is flash memory devices where Virage Logic’s ARC processors are shipped in the lion’s share of USB flash memory devices.

Another market is WiFi where Virage Logic’s ARC processors are shipped in the majority of current generation notebook and netbook computer WiFi Controllers. Furthermore, these peripherals make Virage Logic’s ARC processor solutions more attractive in the 8051 replacement market which the company is addressing with its recently introduced ARC 601 processor.