Cadence Designs World's First Single-Chip Processor for Internet Telephony and Audio Distribution.SAN JOSE San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 27, 1999-- The Aplio TRIO Enables Developers to Significantly Reduce Development Time and Production Costs for Internet Appliances Cadence Design Systems (company) Cadence Design Systems - A company that sells electronic design automation software and services. http://cadence.com/. See also Verilog. , Inc. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :CDN (Content Delivery Network) A system of distributed content on a large intranet or the public Internet in which copies of content are replicated and cached throughout the network. ), the world's leading provider of electronic design products and services, today announced customer tapeout of the first single-chip processor for Internet telephony and audio. The chip, named TRIO, was developed by Cadence for Aplio, Inc., a leading provider of Internet appliances and their enabling, embedded communications technologies. The high-performance Aplio/TRIO chip was developed by the Cadence design services team at the Cadence SOC Design Centre, located within the Project Alba Centre in Livingston, Scotland. Based on an Aplio-created board design that utilized lower-performance discrete processors, the chip was created for use by manufacturers of Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephones, and audio-on-demand appliances utilizing MP3 technology, such as Internet radios and digital music players. The TRIO Design The Aplio/TRIO system-on-a-chip (SOC) incorporates three processors - an ARM 32-bit RISC RISC in full Reduced Instruction Set Computing Computer architecture that uses a limited number of instructions. RISC became popular in microprocessors in the 1980s. core, and two OakDSPCores - and provides all the functionality manufacturers need to develop standalone Internet telephony and audio appliances quickly and at lower cost. In addition, manufacturers can use the Aplio/TRIO chip to enhance other appliances, such as set-top boxes and smart phones. "The Aplio/TRIO is the best single-chip solution available for the booming Internet appliance market. This patented, industry-standard-compliant Internet telephone technology significantly reduces system development time and product cost," said Henri Tebeka, Aplio's chief technology officer. In designing the Aplio/TRIO, Cadence included enhancements aimed at expanding the market opportunity for Aplio. Specifically, Cadence: -- Migrated the system from a discrete processor family to the higher-performance embedded ARM7 architecture, including porting of system software; -- Implemented the modem in software and digital-signal processor (DSP (1) (Digital Signal Processor) A special-purpose CPU used for digital signal processing applications (see definition #2 below). It provides ultra-fast instruction sequences, such as shift and add, and multiply and add, which are commonly used in math-intensive ) hardware - a more flexible solution than the original hardware-only implementation; -- Selected and sourced voice-compression and soft-modem intellectual property (IP); -- Performed design and verification from architecture through RTL (Register Transfer Level) A high-level hardware description language (HDL) for defining digital circuits. The circuits are described as a collection of registers, Boolean equations, control logic such as "if-then-else" statements as well as complex event sequences; to GDS-II, integrating all the logic with IP blocks; and -- Integrated the customer's application code and software IP into a Cadence-developed application-specific integrated circuit (hardware) Application-Specific Integrated Circuit - (ASIC) An integrated circuit designed to perform a particular function by defining the interconnection of a set of basic circuit building blocks drawn from a library provided by the circuit manufacturer. (ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Pronounced "a-sick." A chip that is custom designed for a specific application rather than a general-purpose chip such as a microprocessor. ) emulation board, which was used for system debug To correct a problem in hardware or software. Debugging software means locating the errors in the source code (the program logic). Debugging hardware means finding errors in the circuit design (logical circuits) or in the physical interconnections of the circuits. purposes. "The partnership with Cadence to develop the Aplio/TRIO chip proved successful due to Cadence's unique expertise in whole-system design, comprising proficiency in hardware, software, and ASICs, as well as project management. This combination of skills helped to ensure that the product worked the first time," said Aplio's Tebeka. Said Marc Cannon, vice president of the Cadence Livingston SOC Design Centre, "We worked with Aplio to develop the TRIO specification, drawing on our expertise in systems design. Cadence then designed the chip from system architecture through to silicon. The success of this project illustrates the world-class system and chip design capabilities that we can mobilize in a single design center for a customer project." About Aplio Aplio, Inc. is a leading provider of embedded communications technologies for the Internet appliance market. Aplio's patented technologies enable manufacturers of Internet appliances (such as Internet phones, set-top boxes, web phones, and web pads) to easily, and at minimal cost, integrate Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and other communication capabilities into their devices. As an initial implementation, the Aplio/Phone device was introduced in 1998. With the press of a button, the Aplio/Phone reroutes calls from traditional carriers to the Internet, enabling users to make free long-distance calls. Since its launch, the Aplio/Phone has won numerous industry awards and is now distributed in over 50 countries via over 1,000 resellers, distributors and OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and partners. Building upon its initial success, the company has recently announced plans to expand its technology portfolio to support the fast-growing broadband Internet access Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is high speed Internet access—typically contrasted with dial-up access over modem. Dial-up modems are generally only capable of a maximum bitrate of 56 kbit/s (kilobits per second) and require the full use of a and small business markets. Located in San Bruno, Calif., Aplio, Inc., has a worldwide presence with offices in the United States, Europe, and Israel. The privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. is backed by major venture capitalists. For more information about Aplio, please visit the website at http://www.aplio.com. About Cadence Cadence is the largest supplier of electronic design automation products, methodology services, and design services used to accelerate and manage the design of semiconductors, computer systems, networking and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, and a variety of other electronics-based products. With more than 4,000 employees and 1998 annual sales of $1.2 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world. The Company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and traded on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. under the symbol CDN. More information about the company and its products and services may be obtained from the World Wide Web at http://www.cadence.com. Note to Editors: Cadence and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All others are property of their holders. |
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