NVIDIA, ARM Announce Licensing Agreement Targeted At Next-Generation Consumer Devices

NVIDIA Corporation, a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, and ARM, today announced that NVIDIA has licensed the ARM11 MPCore processor. The licensing of this ARM technology will enable NVIDIA to add application processing functionality to its outstanding graphics and digital media processing capabilities in new system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

“Rich media applications are an essential part of next-generation consumer products,� said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. “By embedding ARM technology in our next-generation products, we can leverage the strength of ARM technology as the application processor and deliver exciting new devices and media rich applications to consumers.�

“NVIDIA has made a strategic decision by selecting ARM processor technology for use in their next-generation digital media products,� said Warren East, CEO, ARM. “The ARM11 MPCore processor, combined with NVIDIA industry-leading graphics and media technology, will deliver new levels of entertainment and innovation to the consumer market, and represents further support for the award-winning ARM11 family of processors.�

The ARM11 MPCore processor includes the ARM SIMD media extensions, IEM (Intelligent Energy Manager) technology for efficient energy management, and Jazelle technology for Java acceleration. The processor runs at up to 550MHz, uses less than 2.7mm² of silicon excluding RAM, and consumes as little as 0.30mW/MHz using ARM IEM technology, (130nm foundry process). The processor features a high-performance memory system delivering more than 1.3 GBytes/sec and scalability to over 2,600 Dhrystone 2.1 MIPS of aggregate performance in a cache coherent, four way configuration

“Multicore processors are gaining momentum in both the embedded and desktop worlds because they combine scalable high performance and lower power,� said Tom R. Halfhill, a senior analyst for In-Stat’s Microprocessor Report. “The trend is clearly toward flexible processor cores, like the ARM11 MPCore processor, which can be used in a uniprocessor, symmetric or asymmetric multiprocessor configurations.�

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