On the embedded frontier - Intel ARMed and dangerous

Electronic News, March 16, 1998 by Ravi Krishnan

The embedded MPU market has made refreshing moves in the past month, despite the gloomy shadow of pessimism surrounding the industry due to the Asian flu. While traditional embedded bigwigs like Motorola, Hitachi and the MIPS partners have added to their arsenal, look out for the Goliath of MPUs, Intel, to make an El Nino-like splash into the embedded arena.

Last month's deal with ARM (Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd.) accords Intel the right to produce, sell and enhance the StrongARM processor. The acquisition implies an immediate presence for Intel in the one area it has struggled to carve a niche--inexpensive, low-margin computing devices. StrongARM is known around the industry as one of the better solutions for emerging devices, with high performance (up to 200MHz clock speed) at low cost (around $27-$29) and low power consumption (less than 250 mW) as its primary selling points.

Flexibility is another of StrongARM's strong points. The SA-1100 runs at 133MHz and 200MHz, supports at least three types of memory, and works on nine different operating systems. Very significantly, the StrongARM chip is relatively compatible with ARM chips made by the company's other licensees like TI.

From a historical perspective, this agreement denotes the first instance of Intel making a microprocessor that it has not designed itself. Intel is just one on the list of licensees of ARM's processor line, the architecture of which is owned by ARM. Some minds have questioned the logic of adopting StrongARM when the company already has a low-cost embedded processor family, the i960. The logic to that stems from the fact that i960 caters to a different application segment--office automation and networking. As such, both processors are likely to be maintained. In fact, the company is in the process of expanding i960's product line focusing on cost sensitive memory sub-systems and increased port density. The future does look good for Intel in the embedded world.

At present, Motorola remains as strong as ever, with the 68K/ColdFire devices recording substantial growth rates in 1997. According to the company, shipment volumes of the 68K/ColdFire line grew by 14 million units last year. Couple this with the architecture owning over one-third of the embedded MPU market's total revenue, and it is but obvious that Motorola leads the embedded MPU bandwagon.

Motorola also remains active in the development of its PowerPC line. The latest from this camp is the introduction of four cost-reducing communications processors of the MPC850 family. By incorporating two high-bandwidth communication channels supporting Ethernet, ATM and multichannel HDLC, the new MPC850 devices integrate the functions of several chips in an internetworking system onto a single chip.

Meanwhile, Sun and IBM announced earlier this month that the latter had licensed the picoJava I processor core. By utilizing picoJava I, IBM hopes to provide fast, efficient operation of Java applications on small electronic devices like the PDA and global position systems. The agreement is an important step towards the company's network computing goals. At the same time, it represents a measure of the growing acceptance of Java processor technology.

While the big dogs are having a field day, a force not to be left behind is the MIPS group. The team of MIPS RISC processor licensees has had its share of glory in recent times. NEC's VR4300 64-bit MPU was awarded Microprocessor Report's "Embedded Processor of the Year" award. The heart of the Nintendo 64 video game console, the VR4300 processor was rewarded for its optimal combination of high performance (up to 170 Dhrystone MIPS), low power dissipation (around 2.2 Watts) and low cost ($10 to $25 per unit).

Another member of Team MIPS, IDT, garnered a major win last month as its R3041 MPU was selected as the processor engine powering the Bay Networks Broadband Technology Division's Generation4 family of cable modems. The deal marks a triumph for IDT as Bay Networks provides the industry's first cable modems that adhere to the MCNS DOCSIS standard.

In-Stat anticipates that the 32-bit and greater embedded microprocessor market will see healthy growth this year at about 40 percent, in spite of the negative effects of the Asian economy. Judging by events in the first few months of 1998, there surely seems to be an interesting year ahead.