Faraday Introduces 533 MHz Embedded RISC CPU Core FA626 Using UMC 0.13 um Process

-- Faraday Technology Corporation, a leading fabless ASIC and IP provider, today announced the availability of ultra-high performance solution – The 32-bit FA626 ARM-compliant embedded RISC CPU core achieving the worst case performance of 533 MHz. The core was designed using Faraday's ultra-high-speed cell library - FSC0H_A for UMC's 0.13 µm HS logic process. FA626 dissipates only 0.76 mW/MHz in core logic, which makes itself one of the most power-efficient high-speed processors. Since Faraday's 0.13 ìm library is tailored for UMC's industry leading 0.13 ìm 1.2 V/3.3 V HS logic process, customers can easily develop a competitive SoC based on FA626, along with the implementation of the peripheral IPs and library.

Faraday's FA626 is targeted for a wide range of applications, especially those requiring ultra-high performance, low cost, and low power consumption such as home entertainment, networking and office automation applications. For applications which do not rely on rich instruction set extensions but instead require a very high clock speed, Faraday sees a market opportunity, in which the FA626 delivers a CPU with the performance level of MIPS24K, PowerPC 440, and other high speed embedded CPUs, but with the popularity of the ARM architecture.

With the experience of more 3000 successful ASIC design projects plus the CPU core expertise, Faraday has ported the Linux kernel and all IP deliverables to the EVB, so developers only need to concentrate on their own IP designs and emulate the entire system. To date, dozens of ASIC customers worldwide have successfully developed their SoC chips based on Faraday's SoCreative! platform using the developing software fully compliant with the ARM tool, which greatly reduces the design time.

"With more and more functions and applications integrated into an embedded system, the voice of performance drivers has been raised from our customers. Thus FA626 will open up new market applications for embedded SoC designs in favor of the ARM cores," said Dr. George Hwang, VP of R&D and International Business at Faraday Technology. "Combining Faraday's solution-based IP and SoC expertise, we could deliver the optimal benefit to our customers to speed up their development cycle and shorten time to market. Currently a great many of our customers have designed in to develop the next generation products.”

About FA626 533 MHz CPU core

The FA626 consists of a synthesized CPU core, an MMU, 32K/32K I/D Caches, separate configurable scratch pads from 8 KB to 32 KB, in 8-stage pipeline architecture. The CPU core implements the ARM v4® architecture. It is suitable for STB, DVR, IPTV, printer, WLAN, WiMax and SAN applications. The single-phase clock and standard cell-based approach make it easy to integrate the FA626 in any SoC design.

About Faraday Technology Corporation

Faraday Technology Corporation is a leading silicon IP and fabless ASIC vendor. The company's broad SIP portfolio includes 32-bit RISC CPUs, DSPs, MPEG4, H.264, PHYs/Controllers for USB 2.0, 10/100 Ethernet, Serial ATA, PCI Express, Cell Library and Memory Compiler. With more than 650 employees and 2005 revenue of US$175 million, Faraday is one of the largest fabless ASIC companies in the Asia-Pacific region, and it also has a significant presence in other world-wide markets. Headquartered in Taiwan , Faraday has service and support offices around the world, including the U.S. , Japan , Europe, and China . For more information, please visit : www.faraday-tech.com