K-Micro Licenses CEVA'S 90nm 3.0Gbps Serial ATA Technology to Enable Topaz Sub-System for Storage Applications
SAN JOSE, Calif. - November 7, 2005 - K-Micro, a leader in
advanced yet affordable ASIC technology, and CEVA Inc., (NASDAQ: CEVA;
LSE: CVA), the leading licensor of digital signal processors (DSP) cores,
multimedia, GPS and storage platforms to the semiconductor industry,
announced today that K-Micro has licensed CEVA's fully-compliant 3.0Gbps
Serial ATA technology. Licensing CEVA's SATA technology will enable
K-Micro to create a version of its revolutionary Topaz sub-system for
storage applications. K-Micro's customers also will be able to include
CEVA's SATA technology in their traditional 90nm ASICs.
K-Micro's Topaz sub-systems are essentially a system-on-a-chip,
containing processors, memory controllers, encryption engines, internal
busses, etc. To create an SoC for their application, customers merely need
to add their proprietary logic to the computing subsystem, greatly
simplifying their engineering efforts and speeding up their products'
time-to-market. K-Micro's vision is to create versions of Topaz for
different applications, such as computing and storage.
CEVA's 90nm Serial ATA 3.0Gbps PHY has one of the lowest power
consumption profiles of any SATA PHY solution available on the market,
requiring less than 150mW per-channel. Occupying an area of less than 1.9
square mm for a two-channel configuration, the CEVA PHY offers a highly
efficient solution that can be used in either host or device mode and, if
necessary, can be replicated to create solutions with four, eight or more
channels. When combined with CEVA's own protocol layers, leveraging CEVA's
SATA IP is a very cost effective way to acquire a fully-compliant,
silicon-proven SATA solution for ASIC designs.
K-Micro's licensing of CEVA's 3.0Gbps Serial ATA solution demonstrates
the ongoing success of the collaboration between the two companies. In
2004, K-Micro licensed and qualified CEVA's 1.5Gbps SATA for its 130nm
ASIC intellectual property (IP) portfolio and brought it to full
production. CEVA has proven that its 1.5Gbps SATA IP is fully
interoperable with leading Serial ATA drives including Seagate Barracuda®,
Western Digital® WD Raptor® and Maxtor® MaXLine® drives.
"CEVA's 1.5Gbps SATA IP performed exactly as specified, and we received
excellent support during our qualification and integration of the IP into
our ASIC portfolio," said Sunil Baliga, vice-president of marketing and
business development at K-Micro. "When it came to choosing a partner for
our second generation 3.0Gbps SATA, CEVA was the natural choice. We
believe K-Micro's Topaz with a 3.0Gbps SATA interface will be
well-received by customers."
"We are very pleased that K-Micro has again chosen to license CEVA
communications IP," said John Ryan, VP and general manager of the
Communications Business Unit, CEVA Inc. "We believe K-Micro's Topaz
sub-system for storage applications will prove to be a very compelling
solution for customers. This new licensing agreement further underlines
the quality of our Serial ATA IP and is testimony to the excellence in
service and commitment we provide to our customers."
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About CEVA, Inc.
Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., CEVA is the leading licensor of digital signal processor (DSP) cores, multimedia, GPS and storage platforms to the semiconductor industry. CEVA licenses a family of programmable DSP cores, associated SoC system platforms and a portfolio of application platforms including multimedia, audio, Voice over Packet (VoP), GPS location, Bluetooth, Serial Attached SCSI and Serial ATA (SATA). In 2005 CEVA's IP was shipped in over 115 million devices. CEVA was created through the merger of the DSP licensing division of DSP Group and Parthus Technologies. For more information, visit ceva-dsp.com.
About K-Micro (Kawasaki Microelectronics)
K-Micro is a leader in advanced yet affordable ASIC technology. The
company's innovative technologies and world-class design support are used
in the consumer electronics, computer, office-automation, networking and
storage markets. The company is an active participant in industry
standards organizations, including the Wi-Fi Alliance, Optical
Internetworking Forum (OIF), PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), USB
Implementers Forum, MPEG Industry Forum (MPEGIF), Mobile Computing
Promotion Consortium (MCPC), the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG), SD
Card Association (SDA) and OCP International Partnership (OCP-IP). K-Micro
has design centers in Boston, San Jose, Taipei, and Tokyo. For more
information, contact the company at 408-570-0555, or visit
http://www.k-micro.us/
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