Sonics Unveils Industry's First GHz Network-on-Chip

SonicsGN Ups the Ante with Optimal Performance, Concurrency Features for Next-Generation ‘Smart Devices’

MILPITAS, Calif., – September 20, 2011 – Sonics, Inc.®, the world’s number one supplier of on-chip communications IP, today announced SonicsGN™ (SGN), the industry’s first GHz network-on-chip (NoC) for advanced, concurrent applications processing and system-level design.  As the industry’s highest frequency NoC available today, SGN allows SoC designers to deliver high-performance, simultaneous application processing for smart phones, mobile video and tablets.  SGN will be generally available this November.   

SGN is built on more than a decade of legacy expertise that closely aligns with the evolution of the company’s network architecture, expanding Sonics broad portfolio of intelligent on-chip networks, innovative memory subsystems and sophisticated development tools.  As Sonics’ flagship performance NoC, SGN combines the highest frequency and advanced concurrency support, giving SoC designers the ability to run multiple high-speed applications simultaneously—which is vital for any of today’s smart devices. 

“For 15 years, Sonics has set the pace for on-chip network innovations and the addition of SGN allows us to stay on top of the aggressive performance, power and integration challenges essential to advanced SoCs,” said Drew Wingard, Sonics CTO.  “The Sonics architecture has appropriately evolved to include scalable, router-based fabrics and new agent micro-architectures that deliver the necessary performance headroom and partitioning flexibility to optimize the power consumption of future designs.  SGN is the only NoC that ensures designers can effectively and seamlessly manage all the essential application concurrency to match the increased capabilities demanded by today’s consumers.”  

Maximum Concurrency, Minimum Power, Superior Performance

SGN incorporates a number of featured advantages for architects and designers in the areas of throughput, concurrency, scalability, power and interoperability.  

With the most advanced levels of concurrency support available in any NoC today, SGN allows designers to run virtual channels for optimal data flow throughout the network— efficiently utilizing system resources as well as saving both power and cost.  This also gives SoC designers the opportunity to fully leverage the maximum available concurrency in the system. 

Additionally, SGN integrates advanced, intelligent system partitioning essential for supporting complex, multi-function SoCs with multiple clock and power domains. 

The advanced system partitioning simplifies the design flow and timing closure along with enabling the lowest active, idle and sleep power dissipation available in the system—providing designers with optimal power and performance levels for a given application. 

Seamless Interoperability and Compatibility

SGN’s routed, packetized architecture can be seamlessly combined with other Sonics’ offerings, giving designers unlimited flexibility and scalability when designing complex SoC solutions.  SGN can seamlessly connect to Sonics’ production-proven SonicsSX, SonicsLX and Sonics3220 networks, as well as its popular MemMax™ family of intelligent memory schedulers, to enable optimal latency, area, power and topology options.  SGN is architecturally and register-level compatible with existing Sonics products to give designers a uniform software view and protect their existing software investments.

For more information on SGN, visit http://www.sonicsinc.com/SonicsGN.htm.

About Sonics

Sonics, Inc. is a pioneer of network-on-chip (NoC) technology and today offers SoC designers the largest portfolio of intelligent, on-chip communications solutions for home entertainment, wireless, networking and mobile devices.  With a broad array of silicon-proven IP, Sonics helps designers eliminate memory bottlenecks associated with complex, high-speed SoC design, streamline and unify data flows and solve persistent network challenges in embedded systems with multiple cores.  As the leading supplier of on-chip communications networks, Sonics has more than 100 patent properties and has enabled its customers to ship more than one billion units worldwide.  Founded in 1996, Sonics is headquartered in Milpitas, Calif. with offices worldwide.  For more information, please visit www.sonicsinc.com and www.sonicsinc.com/blog