Want to implement the essentials of a Linux-based Internet firewall or residential gateway using hardly more than a single chip? Austin, Texas startup Alchemy Semiconductor, Inc. may have just what you need: the Au1000 “Internet Edge Processor”, unveiled earlier this week at the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose, Calif.

What's an “Internet Edge Processor”?

Alchemy provides an answer to this question in its corporate backgrounder . . .

The Internet Edge Device market is growing exponentially. Internet Edge Devices operate on the outer edge of the Internet network and can be segmented into three groups: Enterprise, Wireless, and Residential. The Wireless device market, one of the most talked about markets today, includes WindowsCE-based palm-sized PCs, clamshell palm-sized PCs, and third-generation mobile phones or other wireless communications systems. Enterprise devices include VoIP telephony devices, firewalls, network printers, routers, and switches. Residential devices include such things as set-top boxes and network appliances.

“In a few short years, worldwide wireless subscribers are expected to reach one billion,” says Eric Broockman, Alchemy's President and CEO. “Devices which sit on the edge of the Internet have the common needs of low power consumption and high performance for applications,” observes Broockman.

This definition of the Internet Edge Market forms the basis of Alchemy's unique focus, which is to address the needs of the increasingly large number of Internet Edge applications. The company expects to achieve significant design wins for its system-on-chip ICs in applications like residential gateways, VoIP telephony devices, palm-sized PC's, and other emerging Internet Edge applications.

What's in the Au1000?

The Au1000 is a high integration system-on-chip IC that contains — all within a single chip — a 200-500 MHz 32-bit MIPS CPU core, R4000 MMU, two 10/100 Mbits/sec Ethernet controllers, four UARTs, USB (host/device), IrDA, AC'97 controller, I2S audio codec interface, and two SPI/SSI interfaces. The device also contains an 8-channel DMA controller, 32-source Interrupt controller, and can interface SDRAM system memory and SRAM/Flash/EPROM program memory.

Bearing in mind that power dissapation is the arch enemy of cost, size, reliability, and portability, the device is designed with process and power management technologies that allow it to perform its intended functions with as little as 200 mW of power (at 200 MHz CPU clock). Interfacing to external peripheral chips, such as an LCD controller, is simplified via a high speed address/data interface with several built-in control signals and strobes that minimize glue logic requirements.

Given the high performance and high level of functionality, and in light of the target markets and applications, it comes as no surprise that Alchemy intends to ensure full embedded Linux support for the Au1000 and future Internet Edge Processors.

About Alchemy Semiconductor

Alchemy Semiconductor, Inc., was founded in 1999, and is based in Austin, Texas. It is a fabless semiconductor company that develops system-on-a-chip (SOC) solutions for the Internet Edge Device market. Formerly a business unit of Cadence Design Systems, Inc., the company just received $15M in its first round of venture capital funding and will operate as an independent company.

 
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