Power.org drives initiatives to extend growth and increase Power Architecture technology globally

Power.org drives initiatives to extend growth and increase Power Architecture technology globally

Power.org members collaborate to advance technology innovation and drive leadership in diverse segments of the embedded and server markets

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – January 26, 2010 – Power.org, the organization that promotes and develops standards for Power Architecture technology, today announced that 2009 marked a year of growth fueled by a renewed vision and mission that successfully promoted Power Architecture technology globally, accelerated collaborative innovation and steered the organization through technology, market, and economic changes.

“Power Architecture technology, which continues to deliver significant, competitive advantages, expanded its leadership as the preferred technology across a wide range of ecosystems solutions,” said Kaveh Massoudian, CTO, Power.org Strategic Alliance, IBM. “Power.org, collaboratively with its members and the developer community are poised to embrace the exciting new challenges and technical innovations that will mark 2010 and speed the delivery of products that improve the way people live, work and play.”

Despite the slow economic recovery in the past 12 months, Power.org and its members further advanced Power Architecture technology, completing a number of vital initiatives including Power ISA standards, hypervisor, virtualization and energy management, enabling the highest performing processors and cores for the server and embedded space. Additionally, Power Architecture licensing, SoC, multicore platforms, full system virtualized development, software operating systems, debugging, verification, IP tools, and applications continued to steer substantial advances in home networking, consumer gaming, wireless LTE systems, enterprise switching, routing and storage, printers, and high performance computing.

2009 Highlights:

• Power.org issued a major release of ISA 2.06 that provides key capabilities including virtualization for the embedded space and server market.

• Applied Micro announced its collaboration with TSMC to bring Power Architecture microprocessors to TSMC technology platforms. Such joint efforts aim to produce the world’s highest performance Power Architecture processor manufactured in low-cost bulk CMOS technology. Earlier, Applied Micro licensed its high performance SNOW 3G security engine in support of its customers implementing 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution) base stations.

• Denali Software announced PureSpec™ verification IP support for IBM's PowerPC processor local bus (PLB)-6, enabling verification of compliance with the latest PLB specification and validation of interoperability between the processor cores and integrated bus controllers.

• EVE the leader in hardware/software co-verification has launched ZeBu-Server, a scalable emulation system capable of handling up to one-billion application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) gates. In addition, the register transfer level (RTL) Market Trends 2009 Report from Gary Smith EDA stated that EVE leads the design team acceleration and emulation market.

• Freescale made a series of announcements related to its solutions based on Power Architecture technology. To help developers shorten development cycles and boost application performance for multicore designs, the company introduced production-ready VortiQa™ software. The software has been specifically optimized to unleash the industry-leading performance of its Power Architecture based QorIQ™ communications platform and PowerQUICC processors. Additionally, Freescale announced its sampling of the eight-core QorIQ P4080 processor and P4080 design wins spanning the globe across multiple markets. The company also introduced the quad-core QorIQ P4040 for low-power networking applications, the QorIQ P1022 dual-core processor with advanced power management capabilities to support energy-efficient designs for embedded applications, the QorIQ P1012/P1021 products that incorporate QUICC Engine multiprotocol technology, and the porting of Android on Power Architecture solutions.

• GDA Technologies, Inc. joined the Power.org community, strengthening the Power Architecture roadmap and enabling Power Architecture solutions in growth market areas. GDA announced adding IBM's PowerPC 440T90 to its existing 405S and 460S products using TSMC 90nm process technology optimized for performance, low power dissipation and optimized die size. The Power PC offerings are complemented by a suite of peripheral IPs for easy SOC integration along with our software application IPs for the emerging LTE markets.

• IBM announced its Power 7 server and PowerPC 476 FP core. The news about both the Power7 and PPC476FP demonstrated superior performance with greater energy efficiency than any product offering in the market today, extending the scalability of IBM’s Power Architecture solutions in both the server market and embedded applications and providing a growth platform for emerging applications.

• The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) ordered a supercomputer using Power Architecture technology from IBM that will be able to deliver 20 Petaflops performance by 2012.

• IBM reached a significant milestone as the microprocessor supplier for Nintendo Co., Ltd., by completing the shipment of 50 million processors for the Wii™ game system, which has tremendous worldwide sales momentum. The chip is based on IBM's Power Architecture solutions and features IBM's silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology.

• LSI Corporation has collaborated with IBM on the design of the PowerPC 476FP embedded processor. LSI designed a configurable level 2 (L2) memory cache for the PowerPC, which helps the PPC476 achieve its leading performance. There are three configurations of L2 (256K, 512K and 1M) to allow customer optimization in a given application.

• Virage Logic Corporation (NASDAQ: VIRL) was named an IBM PowerPC Design Center, granting it the rights to license and distribute IBM's PowerPC processor cores and peripheral cores when combined with Virage Logic's broad portfolio of semiconductor IP. The agreement expands IBM's distribution channel and offers customers the convenience of working with a single source to gain access to both the PowerPC technology and Virage Logic's extensive offering of silicon proven semiconductor IP including embedded SRAMS, embedded NVMs, embedded test and repair, logic libraries, memory development software, and interface IP solutions.

• Virtutech defined full systems virtualized development and Simics 4.2 and was selected by NASA Orion to provide a virtual platform. Simics creates a virtual environment in which products can be efficiently Defined, Developed, and Deployed and provides extensive library support for Power Architecture including devices from Applied Micro, IBM, and Freescale’s QorIQ™ communications processor family.

• XGI Technology is readying a highly capable 2D graphics controller and high definition video decoder called VolariTM G6 which supports H.264 and MPEG-1/2.

Capitalizing on market leadership positions in a number of key markets, Power.org member companies established a strong silicon roadmap, backed by major R&D investments, to address the next generation requirements of high performance systems and applications. On September 18, President Obama recognized IBM and its Blue Gene family of supercomputers with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the country's most prestigious award given to leading innovators for technological achievement underscored Power Architecture technology’s influence on the development of and leadership in high performance computing.

Power.org played a major role as a sponsor of numerous elite industry events and hosted the Power Architecture Conference in Asia, where member companies shared product updates and expertise. These events supported both academia and industry advancement of technology, and included DesignCon, International Symposium of Computer Architecture (ISCA), Hot Chips 21, Linley Tech Processor Conference, Asia Power Architecture Conference in China, Japan and Taiwan, Embedded Linux Conference, and the China Chip Conference.

Finally, Power.org produced a series of informative and educational materials aimed at increasing awareness of Power Architecture and its brand system, including its newsletter, white papers, video training, fliers, slide shows, webcasts and the Power Architecture companion micro site (www.eecatalog/powerarchitecture). These materials continue to be available as complimentary downloads at www.power.org or for Chinese language versions, www.power.org/cn in Chinese.

About Power.org

Power Architecture technology is behind millions of innovative products, including the world’s fastest supercomputers, leading video game consoles, and electronic systems in most of today’s car models. Every phone call, email and Web page touches hundreds of Power Architecture systems.

The open Power.org community, formed in 2005, is the organization driving collaborative innovation around Power Architecture technology. Power.org’s mission is to optimize interoperability, accelerate innovation and drive increased adoption of this leading processor architecture. For more details, visit

www.power.org