Velocity Semiconductor debuts first in series of mixed-language microcontrollers - Velocity Semiconductor Typhoon VS2000

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, June 2, 2003

Velocity Semiconductor has announced the first member of the Typhoon family of microcontrollers: the VS2000. The Typhoon family combines on a single chip, the high-performance Lightfoot CPU, 10/100 Ethernet MAC, RAM, configurable memory interface, and a variety of system functions. Supporting Java and native C languages, the Typhoon family of microcontrollers is aimed at embedded networked connectivity applications.

The Typhoon family offers a complete solution, featuring a tightly integrated hardware, software, and low-cost development kit that includes a full-featured evaluation board, software development kit (SDK) and royalty-free software: RTOS, ANSI C, TCP/IP stack and Java-compatible libraries. This comprehensive development environment accelerates the creation of products that require communication and control functionality by enabling designers to quickly and efficiently design, implement, and debug their application.

The VS2000 feature set includes a 60 MHz 32-bit Lightfoot RISC CPU core, 10/100 Ethernet MAC with a 4KB frame buffer SRAM, external memory controller with 32MB addressing range, configurable 8- or 32-bit external memory bus, glueless interface including four individually-programmed chip selects, two cache controllers, two UARTS, three SPI ports, watchdog timer, real-time clock and interrupt controller.

"The Typhoon family was designed noting the networking advantages of Java and the existing base of applications developed in C. It delivers an architecture which sets a completely new price and performance standard while overcoming the many constraints encountered in developing embedded systems," stated Scott A. Avery, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Velocity Semiconductor. "The VS2000's unmatched code density enables Velocity to meet the coding constraints and cost objectives required by 8- and 16-bit systems. The Typhoon family offers the best embedded connectivity solution in the market, without the memory or footprint overheads."

The VS2000 is now in volume production and is available in both 40 MHz and 60 MHz versions. The 40 MHz version of the VS2000 is priced at $9.95 in 1,000 unit quantities.

The VS2000 Evaluation Kit (VS2000EVB), priced at $399.00, is also available. The evaluation kit contains an evaluation board, software development kit (SDK) including RTOS, ANSI C, TCP/IP stack and Java-compatible libraries, quick start guide, comprehensive documentation, serial cable, and power supply.

Founded in 2002, Velocity Semiconductor is a fabless semiconductor company that develops and markets specialized microcontroller and development tools. Velocity is the industry's premier supplier of 32-bit mixed-language processors supporting industry-standard legacy C code and Java. Offering unequalled performance and code density, Velocity's microcontrollers deliver exceptional 32-bit performance at 8-bit systems cost. The company is a privately held corporation with offices in Pleasanton, California and London, England.