Cortus, MagnaChip and Taegee Team Up to Create 32Bit ASMCU IP for Touch Screen Applications

Montpellier, France, 4th May 2011 - Cortus S.A., MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation and Taegee Company, Ltd., have collaborated to develop an advanced, low power, 32bit microprocessor based ASMCU (Application Specific Microcontroller) and associated IP for use in products such as tablet computers, smart phones, laptops and other widely-used touch screen applications.

Cortus S.A. designs and licenses highly efficient 32-bit processor cores and IP that enhance accurate and reliable touch gesture recognition while also extending battery life. This 32-bit microprocessor technology is ported to Magnachip’s 0.18um EEPROM technology using Taegee’s semiconductor and system design expertise. The jointly developed ASMCU will be manufactured by MagnaChip’s Semiconductor Manufacturing Services.

Mike Chapman, President and CEO of Cortus S.A., said, “We are delighted that this collaboration is quickly showing excellent results. The ASMCU developed for touch screen controllers is an excellent example of the products that will come out of this partnership. Our APS3 processor core is ideal for these applications with its low power, high performance and small core size.”

“The Cortus APS3 was a perfect fit for our design requirements," Said Channy Lee, President and CEO of Taegee. "The comprehensive training and simple interfaces provided by Cortus ensured very rapid integration helping us keep ahead of our aggressive schedules. The small silicon footprint and low power consumption features enabled us to meet our design goals and while providing the required processor performance. The APS3 will be a key feature in many of our future ASMCU designs.”

TJ Lee, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Corporate Engineering and SMS Engineering of MagnaChip Semiconductor, commented, “We are very pleased to provide our 0.18um EEPROM technology as part of the Cortus and Taegee team. This type of partnership helps MagnaChip better meet the increasing demand of our customers.”

The Cortus APS3 is a high performance 32-bit processor designed specifically for embedded systems. It features a tiny silicon footprint (the same size as an 8051), very low power consumption, high code density and high performance (up to 1.67 DMIPS/MHz). A full development environment is available, which can be customised and branded for customer use. The ecosystem around the APS3 is rich and well developed, it includes a full development environment (for C and C++), peripherals typical of embedded systems, bus bridges to ensure easy interfacing to other IP and system support and functions such as cache and memory management units. For the most demanding designs, the APS3 can be used in a multi-core configuration. The APS3 processor core is currently in production in a range of products from security applications to ultra low power RF designs.

About Cortus S.A.

Cortus S.A. is the price/performance leader for 32 bit processor IP for embedded systems. Cortus cores are used in applications where one or more of small silicon footprint, low power consumption, good code density/small code memory size and high performance are important. http://www.cortus.com

About Taegee:

Taegee is a design house founded in late 2009.. The Taegee team leverages over 100 man-years of experience and expertise in the semiconductor design and foundry business. Taegee is committed to providing its customers with design-driven foundry services through MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation. Taegee works closely with its customers to ensure a seamless interaction. www.taegee.com  

About MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation:

Headquartered in South Korea, MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation is a Korea-based designer and manufacturer of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products for high volume consumer applications. MagnaChip Semiconductor believes it has one of the broadest and deepest range of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor platforms in the industry, supported by its 30-year operating history, large portfolio of registered and pending patents and extensive engineering and manufacturing process expertise. www.magnachip.com