Olympus Licenses Tensilica's Xtensa Microprocessor

June 17, 2002, Santa Clara, CA. - Tensilica® Inc., the leading supplier of configurable processor cores for embedded system-on-chip (SOC) applications, announced today that the Corporate R&D Center of Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. had licensed Xtensa technology. Olympus initiated research earlier to determine Tensilica's applicability in its product lines, and found a variety of possible uses in advanced embedded applications.

Speaking for Olympus, Masao Kuribayashi, General Manager of EDA Technology Department, said
"It will be of great value for us - a system maker - to be able to implement and employ optimized configurable processors in our products because they will provide a significant competitive advantage. Moreover, using Tensilica's revolutionary approach to SOC design, we will be able to bring a level of customization and performance typically only achieved with the design of complex hardwired ASIC blocks, while saving significant design time and resources."

"The addition of Olympus as an Xtensa licensee is a testament to the continued broad application of our technology in everything from high-performance, mission-critical network systems to high-volume, consumer devices," said Bernie Rosenthal, vice president of marketing for Tensilica. "This ubiquitous use of the Xtensa architecture indicates the growing acceptance of extensible processors in embedded applications."

Xtensa is Tensilica's proven configurable and extensible microprocessor architecture that provides a powerful, integrated hardware and software development environment with thousands of configuration options and an unlimited range of customer-specific extensions. The environment enables designers to carefully tune the processor for specific functionality. With an easy-to-use graphical interface, designers can take advantage of Tensilica's processor generator to create customized MPU solutions with specialized functions and instructions. Because these instructions are recognized as "native" by a complete set of software development tools, developers can simultaneously tune both application software and processor hardware to meet specific speed, power and feature goals.
 
 

About Olympus Optical Co., Ltd.
Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. is a global leader in the supply of products based on "opto-digital technology" - a complete integration of traditional optical technology and advanced digital technology. This technology enables the development of Olympus' extensive line of award-winning digital imaging products including microscopes, endoscopes, film cameras, and digital cameras. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Olympus was founded in 1919. For more information, visit the Olympus web site at www.olympus.co.jp.

About Tensilica, Inc.
Tensilica was founded in July 1997 to address the fast-growing market for configurable processors and software development tools for high volume, embedded systems. Using the company's proprietary Xtensa Processor Generator, system-on-chip (SOC) designers can develop a processor subsystem hardware design and a complete software development tool environment tailored to their specific requirements in hours. Tensilica's solutions provide a proven, easy-to-use, methodology that enables designers to achieve optimum application performance in minimum design time. The Company has over 140 engineers engaged in research, development, and customer support from its offices in in Santa Clara, California; Burlington, Massachusetts; Princeton, NJ; Austin, Texas; Raleigh, NC; Oxford, U.K.; Stockholm, Sweden; Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.; and Yokohama, Japan. Tensilica is headquartered in Santa Clara, California  (95054) at 3255-6 Scott Boulevard, and can be reached at (408) 986-8000 or via www.tensilica.com on the World Wide Web.

Editors’ Notes:

• "Tensilica" and "Xtensa" are registered trademarks belonging to Tensilica, Inc. All other registered trademarks or trademarks are property of their respective owners.
• Tensilica's announced licensees are Avision, Berkeley Wireless Research Center, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Conexant Systems, FUJIFILM Microdevices, Fujitsu Ltd., Hughes Network Systems, IC4IC, Ikanos Communications, JNI Corporation, Marvell (Galileo Technology), Mindspeed Technologies, National Semiconductor, NEC Networks, NEC Solutions, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT), Olympus Optical Co., ONEX Communications, OptiX Networks, Osaka & Kyoto Universities, TranSwitch Corporation, Victor Company of Japan (JVC) and ZiLOG.