Fabless chipmaker ZF Micro Solutions announced plans today to resume production of its x86-based SoC (system-on-chip) processor in the first quarter of 2006. The company says the chips will be fabbed by IBM, with which it has just signed a multi-year agreement.

(Click here for larger view of ZFx86 block diagram)

ZF claims its ZFx86 SoC has achieved more than 400 design wins worldwide. The chip, “tailored specifically to the requirements of the embedded control market,” according to the company, integrates a “complete PC feature set,” along with low power consumption, an embedded BIOS, and a “patented crash recovery mechanism.”

The ZFx86 initially launched early in 2000, touting support for a choice of a customized embedded Linux implementation or Wind River's VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS). The highly integrated SoC includes a 133MHz 32-bit x86 processor; PCI and ISA bus controllers; USB, serial, and parallel ports ports; general purpose I/O lines; and PC-compatible keyboard/mouse, IrDA, floppy, and hard drive interfaces. Display and networking functions are not included, and require the addition of external chipsets.

Market perspective

The ZF SoC competes with x86 SoCs from AMD and Via, as well as non-x86 SoCs based on ARM, PowerPC, MIPS, and SuperH, cores.

Last year's LinuxDevices.com reader survey suggested that the ARM processor architecture has recently overtaken the x86 architecture in terms of embedded Linux based project design starts. However, despite ARM grabbing the lead, x86 remains a highly popular architecture among embedded Linux device and system developers.

ARM and x86 are the two most popular processor architectures in embedded Linux designs, according to LinuxDevices.com reader survey data

Availability

ZF said it expects samples of the ZFx86 chip to be available by the end of this year, with volume production beginning in the first quarter of 2006.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.