SiliconBackplane unsnarls memory bottlenecks

Pete Heller, director of marketing, said Sonics has improved the shared-memory management of SiliconBackplane MicroNetwork in the version 2.1 upgrade, adding 128-bit-wide data paths and single-ported protocols. Now, operating frequencies top 250 MHz and effective SoC bandwidths exceed 4 Gbytes/second. Heller said the older version handled bandwi dth of up to 2 Gbytes/s.

Heller said Sonics customers have reported SiliconBackplane bandwidth utilization in excess of 80 percent for shared-memory-based SoC devices using on-board SRAM. With the new version, Sonics expects designers to attain over 90 percent SDRAM link efficiency while serving data flows from four or more traffic-initiating IP cores.

Heller said the company also plans to extend the system's performance to DRAM and has entered into a technology partnership with Denali Software Inc., noted for, among other things, its memory-modeling tools. Denali will create an on-chip DRAM controller with speedy links to the system that will be able to access off-chip DRAM with maximum performance, he said.

Version 2.1 will be available in the third quarter running on Sun workstations. Pricing starts at $125,000 for an IP license. Royalties are determined by user needs, applications and intended production volumes. See (www.sonicsinc.com.< /I>)