JPL, Conexant license cores from Innovative

JPL, Conexant license cores from Innovative
By Michael Santarini, EE Times
May 22, 2000 (10:12 a.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20000522S0006

Core vendor Innovative Semiconductors Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) has announced large wins with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and with chip vendor Conexant. JPL has picked Innovative's FlexFire Link and Digital PHY Layer cores for use in the NASA/JPL Advanced Deep Space Systems Technology Program, known as X2000. And Conexant will incorporate Innovative's Video Interface Port (VIP) in future chips.

The FlexFire cores will become part of an avionics and communication architecture that will be used in spacecraft missions bound for Mars, the outer planets of the solar system and beyond. JPL will use them to develop a chip set that will integrate computer, telecom, navigation, power management and sensor technology.

According to JPL, a key goal of X2000 is to make spacecraft electronics reusable across many missions, while driving down the size, mass, power and cost of spacecraft. To achieve that goal, the program takes advantage of c ommercial PC and communications technology, such as the IEEE-1394 high-speed serial-bus standard.

The FlexFire family includes the 1394 general-purpose link layer controller, an audio/video link layer controller that supports encryption and a PCI link layer controller. The line also boasts a backplane physical-layer controller and a cable PHY controller that includes both the analog and digital design components.

Meanwhile, Innovative's Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) VIP cores will likely be used initially for entertainment systems at Conexant, but the entire company will have access to them. The VIP core specifies the interface between graphics controllers and video devices. As a universal standard, it meets the industry's demand for compatibility, cost effectiveness and high performance, Innovative said. The latest version, VIP2, supports demanding applications such as HDTV, while maintaining backward compatibility. For further information, see www.isi96.com.