Open Core Protocol International Partnership Announces Release 2.0 of Its Interface Socket Specification.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 3, 2003

Industry Standard Socket Enhanced Through Strong Member

Collaboration and Adoption

Open Core Protocol International Partnership (OCP-IP), an industry association delivering a common standard for intellectual property core interfaces, or sockets, that facilitate "plug and play" System-on-Chip (SoC) design, today announced the availability of the OCP Specification 2.0 Release Candidate.

This evolution of the specification includes: A model for write transfers which provides for precise end-to-end-responses, an enhanced burst model that provides for both burst length and packet style transfers, support for specification of endianness, as well as support for user-defined in band command data and response extensions which can be used to support features such as parity and Error Correcting Codes. The specification also makes provisions for lite-weight OCP interfaces with read only/write only/FIFO style IP cores, and support for lazy memory synchronization.

According to Ian Mackintosh, president of OCP-IP, a standard is only proven through real-world implementations and products. Many OCP-IP members, companies with world-class SoC design expertise in their own right, have adopted OCP and have used it in production SoC designs. OCP 2.0 utilizes the collective experience of many of these SoC designers and EDA providers and directly addresses their enhancement requests with the new specification.

"The partnership's working groups are extremely active and have done a tremendous job rapidly evolving the specification," said Mackintosh. "Adoption of OCP has been quite dramatic and we now have a large number of EDA vendors and IP suppliers offering OCP compliant tools and products. This is a strong testament to the fact that the industry now has a complete socket standard that everyone can use, no matter what their on-chip architecture is, or whose processor cores they're using."

"Texas Instruments firmly supports the mission of OCP-IP to develop a standardized socket for plugging IP cores into SoC designs," said Pete Cumming, Lead OMAP Architect at TI. "As a founding member and Governing Steering Committee participant, it is especially gratifying for TI see our work, along with that of other GSC members, developed into the OCP 2.0 Release Candidate."

"We at Nokia are proud to participate in the OCP-IP Governing Steering Committee with other industry leaders," said Anssi Haverinen, Research Manager of Nokia Research Center. "It is particularly gratifying to see the tremendous support and speed of adoption we have witnessed throughout the industry."

While OCP Specification 1.0 continues to be the version of record, the OCP Specification 2.0 Release Candidate has solid support with a number of EDA vendors and IP suppliers already developing tools and products. OCP 2.0 support for CoreCreator, a tool that provides an environment for simulating the core and analyzing performance and functionality in a system environment, will be freely available to OCP-IP members in Q3 2003.

The Open Core Protocol Specification Release 2.0 can be downloaded at www.ocpip.org.

About OCP-IP

The OCP International Partnership Association, Inc. (OCP-IP) was formed in December 2001 to promote and support the open core protocol (OCP) as the complete socket standard that ensures rapid creation and integration of interoperable virtual components. OCP-IP's founding members and initial Governing Steering Committee participants are: Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), MIPS Technologies (NasdaqNM: MIPS), United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC), and Sonics, Inc., the inventor of the OCP technology. OCP-IP is a non-profit corporation focused on delivering the first fully supported, openly licensed core-centric protocol that comprehensively fulfills system-level integration requirements. The OCP facilitates IP core reusability and reduces design time and risk, along with manufacturing costs for SOC designs. For additional background and membership information, visit www.OCPIP.org.