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Power.org returns to China

Details technical subcommittees, announces new members


Power.org has returned to China, where the Power.org movement was launched last December, with a successful community event in Shanghai on September 27th and 28th. The conference focused on innovative Power Architecture concepts, as well as design tools and solutions for Power Architecture system-on-chip developers.

Power.org introduced new members and outlined specific actions designed to empower companies both in Asia and around the world to develop systems and technology based on Power Architecture. These announcements include:

  • The introduction of eight new members of Power.org, bringing the total community to 30 companies.
    Welcome CipherOptics, CriticalBlue, Genesi, Mentor Graphics, Silicon Application Corporation, Tehuti Networks, Terra Soft Solutions, and Virtutech.
  • The formation of five technical subcommittees that will help enable more rapid and lower cost Power Architecture development.
  • New 90-nanometer versions of the low-power and high-performance Power Architecture embedded SoC cores from IBM.
  • A Power evaluation kit, made available to the developer community.
  • A comprehensive set of services for SoC designers from Cadence Design Systems
  • Genesi announced its intention to develop a PPC 970MP-based development platform.
  • Rapport announced that it has licensed the PowerPC 440 microprocessor core.
  • Power.org membership and product development by member companies has exceeded first year expectations in the first 10 months.

A "fully functioning collaborative organization"

"What started only months ago as a consortium of companies driving innovation on Power Architecture technology has become a fully functioning collaborative organization, supporting openness and collaborative innovation around new products and systems," said Nigel Beck, chairman, Power.org. "The rapid growth of the Power.org movement provides a glimpse at the possibilities that exist when breakthrough technology is made truly open and accessible to all."

The Shanghai conference was attended by Power.org members and numerous technology and manufacturing companies from throughout Asia and the Middle East. The eight new Power.org members will provide substantial domain expertise to the Power movement in areas such as security, electronic design automation, software solutions, and connectivity.

The newly announced members include:

  • CipherOptics - A leading provider of data security solutions. Organizations worldwide including Fortune 10 companies, top-tier international financial institutions, healthcare providers, and government agencies, rely on CipherOptics to secure their data communications. CipherOptics solutions provide security through granular access control and encryption, plus superior data integrity.

  • CriticalBlue – A provider of design solutions for accelerating software in embedded microprocessor applications. Working directly from the executable code of the main processor, the revolutionary Cascade solution synthesizes an optimized and programmable coprocessor to execute key software functions which are offloaded from the main processor. CriticalBlue therefore offers system and semiconductor design companies with flexible, automated embedded system design solutions that can meet the increasing performance, area, power, and cost demands of embedded software processing across a wide range of application sectors.

  • Genesi - A leading provider of PowerPC® computing products. Genesi's OpenFirmware (IEEE1275) compliant PegasosPPC family is designed to bring PowerPC technology, flexibility, and efficiency to the desktop, home entertainment, netcom, low-end server, and pervasive customer segments at an affordable price.

  • Mentor Graphics - A technology leader in electronic design automation (EDA), providing software and hardware design solutions that can enable companies to develop advanced electronic products faster and more cost-effectively. The company offers innovative products and solutions to help engineers overcome the design challenges they face in the increasingly complex worlds of chip and board design.

  • Silicon Application Corporation – A Taiwan-based SAC Group is a services provider in the semiconductor supply chain. With business operations in Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore, SAC serves as both distributor for semiconductor suppliers as well as a provider of technical support, design-in, total solutions and storage services to its clients.

  • Tehuti Networks – A fabless semiconductor company with offices in Israel and the United States that develops solutions-on-a-chip (SoC) for accelerating TCP/IP processing. The solutions can improve processing performance and provide significant cost benefits to original equipment manufacturers and IT users.

  • Terra Soft Solutions - Terra Soft has maintained a singular focus on Power Architecture technology and the Linux OS, providing turn-key integrated solutions for home, office, and mission critical environments. With an expertise in high performance computing, Terra Soft maintains clients in the Departments of Energy and Defense, and working relationships with IBM, Freescale, Mercury, Momentum, and Curtiss Wright for systems bring-up, seamless code migration from host to target, and collaborative customer support.

  • Virtutech - A leading provider of full system simulation technology for the development and testing of software for advanced electronic systems. Virtutech's technology provides the foundation to move software development from being based around unwieldy and often non-existent hardware to being based on a programmer-friendly simulation environment running on every programmer’s desktop.

Initial Technical Committees highlighted

Power.org also announced the formation of the initial Power.org Technical Subcommittees, including:

  • Power Architecture platform requirements
  • High-volume server reference platform
  • Storage SMB reference platform
  • SoC design hierarchy
  • Bus architecture
These subcommittees will strengthen the ecosystem and enhance development opportunities, allowing organizations around the world to leverage Power Architecture technology in new products and services.

"The heart of Power.org revolves around its members and the actions of the technical committees," said Mike Paczan, chairman of the Power.org Technical Committee. "The Power movement is gaining momentum, illustrating the possibilities that exist when powerful technology is open and accessible."

New Power Architecture processor cores and development tools

IBM announced the new PowerPC 405 and PowerPC 440 embedded processor cores in 90nm technology. The PPC 405 core is ideally suited for low-power applications such as consumer and wireless communications.  The PPC 440 core is a high-performance solution for a variety of applications, such as embedded computing, wired communications, and storage. The PPC 440 will be made available along with a compatible floating point core and an L2 cache controller.

Cadence Design Systems announced the availability of a comprehensive set of services for SoC designers embedding Power Architecture technology, including a new custom-synthesized design approach. Developed in close collaboration with Power.org members, the custom-synthesized approach advances Power Architecture portability in customer segments such as consumer and networking.

Genesi announced its intention to develop a dual PowerPC 970MP-based platform to be designated as the "Open Server Workstation" directed at Power Architecture development communities.

IBM also announced, an integrated Power Evaluation Kit (PEK) that enables software development and performance analysis for consumer applications based on Power Architecture technology. Designed to speed the development process for Power.org members and third-party developers, it is available for free download. The kit, which includes the IBM ChipBenchTM System Level Design (SLD) solution along with a set of SystemC transaction-level architecure models, can help designers quickly evaluate the effects of design trade-offs on performance, power, timing, and die size.  The PEK can help reduce the time associated with traditional design techniques. Click here to download the kit. 


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Published September 27, 2005