SuperH SH4-202 CPU core achieves Silver IP status at UMC; hard-macro in 0.13um CMOS achieves 266MHz.

UMC (NYSE:UMC) a semiconductor foundry, and SuperH, Inc., a supplier of multimedia RISC CPU cores, have announced that SuperH's SH4-202 32-bit CPU core has achieved "Silver IP" status at UMC for the foundry's 0.13um process. A Silver ranking under UMC's Gold IP program signifies that the core has been verified in silicon at UMC and is ready for production.

The SH-4 family is targeted at a wide range of multimedia applications including set top box, car information systems and portable digital consumer products and is supported through SuperH's extensive 3rd party program with over 65 companies offering various development tools, software and design services.

Commented Atsushi Hasegawa, VP of engineering at SuperH, "We are pleased with the close level of support that UMC has provided, and are happy to have completed the successful qualification of our IP in UMC's 0.13um process, which we look forward to moving into production over the coming months."

The "Silver IP" status of the SH4-202 will become "Gold IP" once a customer design that uses the core achieves volume production at UMC. The Gold IP program makes available to customers a wide range of silicon verified IP and library components that are optimized for easy integration into customer designs.

The SH4-202 CPU core integrates a 32-bit RISC CPU core with an integrated Vector floating point unit and delivers an impressive 1.5Dhrystone 2.1 MIPS/MHz and 7MFLOPS/MHz. In 0.13um CMOS the CPU core is less than 1mm2 and the whole hard macro integrating CPU, FPU, 32K D cache, 16K I cache, serial port, timers, real time clock, interrupt controller, bus interface and debug port is only 8.2mm2.

"UMC remains committed to working closely with our IP partners to develop IP resources that are optimized for value, usability, and user friendliness," said Jackson Hu, president of the New Business Development Group and head of Design Support at UMC. "We value our partnership with SuperH, and welcome the availability of their SH-4 core for UMC's 0.13um process."

SuperH, Inc. is a semiconductor intellectual property (SIP) licensing company and is the leading supplier of multimedia RISC CPU cores to companies building system-on-chip (SoC) products.

SuperH, Inc. develops RISC CPU cores, the SuperHyway Bus on-chip interconnect and software development tools. The SuperH family today includes the 32-bit SH-4 and 64-bit SH-5 CPU cores and is ideally suited to multimedia applications that require a single CPU core executing a mix of general purpose code and DSP algorithms. SuperH CPU cores are targeted at consumer, automotive, telecom and handheld multimedia appliance markets with specific emphasis on set top box, residential gateway, car information systems, modems, digital camera and multimedia players.[section]