Spreadtrum selects Arteris high-speed interchip communications IP for mobile phone baseband memory sharing

SUNNYVALE, USA: Arteris Inc., the inventor and leading supplier of network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect IP solutions, announced that Spreadtrum Communications Inc., a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in both 2G and 3G wireless communications, has licensed Arteris' C2C Chip-to-Chip Link IP for high speed inter-chip communication between its mobile phone baseband chips and application processors.

"As the leader in TD-SCDMA technology and product development, Spreadtrum is always looking for ways to advance our customers' capabilities while reducing their costs," said Diana Jovin, vice president of strategy and investor relations for Spreadtrum. "C2C allows us to remove a dedicated memory module from our mobile phone reference design, reducing our customers' design cost."

As announced on 26 July 2011, C2C is the first instance of an industry standard allowing shared memory between two chips, such as a mobile phone application processor and a mobile phone modem. The 100ns round-trip latency of the C2C connection is fast enough for the modem to share the application processor's RAM and to maintain enough read throughput and low latency for cache refills. This enables the phone manufacturer to remove the modem's dedicated RAM chip from the phone's bill of materials (BOM).

"The C2C is a good solution allowing shared memory between the modem IC and application processor in the smart phone system," said Dr. Davids Wu, GM of Samsung Semiconductor China R&D Center. "Spreadtrum's decision to include the C2C IP will enable a very competitive system solution when combined with our leading Exynos application processors with C2C support, like Exynos 4212."

"Spreadtrum's use of C2C in their TD-SCDMA product reference designs is an endorsement of the split application processor / modem architecture to provide the industry's best environment for innovation," said K. Charles Janac, president and CEO of Arteris. "C2C helps accelerate wireless innovation by permitting baseband and application processor technologies to develop independently and at different rates."