Chips: Hitachi Breaks Performance-Versus-Power Barriers With PCI-Enabled SuperH RISC Microprocessor. New SuperH Chip Delivers 1,000 MIPS/Watt - Hitachi SH7751 - Product Announcement

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, May 10, 1999

Addressing the increasing performance demands of today's networking, digital video and personal access applications, Hitachi Semiconductor (America) Inc. Tuesday introduced the latest addition to its successful SuperH family of 32-bit RISC microprocessors: the SH7751.

Based on Hitachi's SH-4 architecture, the SH7751 achieves a leading performance-to-power ratio of 1,000 MIPS (million instructions per second) per watt consumed.

This battery-efficient computing capability, coupled with an integrated PCI v2.1 interface, allows the SH7751 to deliver PC-like performance and extensive peripheral connectivity without the design sacrifices often associated with these capabilities. Hitachi estimates that designs based on the SH7751 will have up to 70 percent longer battery life than comparable devices available today.

Faster Development, Lower Chip Count with Integrated PCI The SH7751 features an integrated, industry-standard PCI expansion bus controller that operates at up to 66 MHz, eliminating the need for designers to use separate PCI bridge chips. The resulting lower chip count enables smaller, more power-efficient devices that can accommodate a wider variety of peripherals.

Other significant features of the SH7751 include:

* A range of operating frequencies from 133 MHz (1.5 V) and 167 MHz (1.8 V);

* Two-way superscalar CPU design, with a sophisticated arithmetic floating point accelerator delivering peak performance benchmarks of 1.2 GFLOPS at 167 MHz and 0.9 GFLOPS at 133 MHz;

* Low power dissipation at 240 mW at 1.5 V (400 mW at 1.8 V), resulting in longer battery life and breakthrough performance of 1,000 MIPS/Watt;

* A 32-bit data bus, selectable to 8- and 16-bit;

* A dedicated four-channel DMA controller for transfers across the PCI bus;

* Four-channel general purpose DMA controller;

* Five 32-bit timers;

* Fixed-length 16-bit instruction set for reduced memory requirements, delivering the best code density in its performance class;

* Sophisticated on-chip debugging capabilities via a JTAG-compatible Hitachi User Debug (H-UDI) and real time execution trace from the Hitachi Advanced User Debug (AUD) interfaces, which provides for rapid development times.

Software Support and Tools The SH7751 is instruction set compatible with Hitachi's SH-1, SH-2, SH-2E, SH-3, SH-3E and SH-4 devices, providing a unique assurance within the embedded microprocessor arena: a customer's investment in the SuperH architecture will preserve previous investments in software development efforts. Therefore, the compiler tool chain offerings from Cygnus, Green Hills, Metroworks, Microsoft, and Hitachi will support this product.

The SH7751 will support Microsoft's Windows CE operating system as well as others. Hitachi also offers a JTAG-compatible E10A emulator (available as a PCI or PCMCIA card) that works with the H-UDI and AUD interfaces to the SH7751 on-chip debugging peripherals. Price and Availability

Samples of the Hitachi SuperH SH7751 32-bit RISC microprocessor (256-pin QFP) will be available in calendar Q3 1999, with volume quantities offered in Q1 2000. Price is US$33.00 in lots of 10,000.

Summary of Features

SH7751  Clock      Power    Sleep   MIPS   GFLOPS   GFLOPS/  MIPS/
Core    Frequency  Dissi-                  (Peak)   Watt     Watt
Voltage            pation

1.5 V   133 MHz    240 mW   50 mW   240    0.9      3.75     1,000
1.8 V   167 MHz    400 mW  100 mW   300    1.2      3        750

Hitachi Semiconductor (America) Inc. -- a subsidiary of Hitachi America, Ltd., in turn a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. -- supports the requirements of the North American marketplace with a broad range of standard and low power semiconductor solutions.

Offering some of the industry's most popular RISC microprocessors and memory components among other semiconductor solutions, Hitachi provides chips to the world's leading device manufacturers within industrial, consumer and emerging market applications. The Company's substantial design engineering, research and development facilities in the United States help bring the world's best technology to U.S. customers. For more information, visit http://semiconductor.hitachi.com/.>

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