March to programmability inexorable, says Tensilica CEO

K.C. Krishnadas, EE Times
(10/10/2007 10:11 AM EDT)
 
BENGALURU, India -- The infinite appetite for live multimedia-based devices, especially for handhelds and devices for the living room, is driving the development of new silicon platforms. This, in turn, is causing the processor industry to move towards greater programmability.

Addressing members of the India Semiconductor Association, here, on forthcoming changes in chip design necessary to ride the multimedia wave, Chris Rowen, president and chief executive, Tensilica Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), said the march of programmability is inexorable, as is the trend to use more processors on a single chip.

Another big change, according to Rowen, is that scaling will not be as crucial to the attainment of lower power consumption and higher clock speeds. Instead, scaling will enable better subsystem architectures and higher integration of multiple subsystems into chip platforms

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