Sonics Showcases On-Chip Connectivity Solutions at Multicore Expo

Sonics’ Ecosystem Partners Support Full-Range of SoC Development

MILPITAS, Calif.--April 22, 2010--Sonics, Inc. ®, a premier supplier of intelligent on-chip communications solutions, will feature its on-chip connectivity products at Multicore Expo, April 26-29 at the McEnery Convention Center, San Jose, in booth #2402. The company will demo its newest on-chip network product, SNAP™ (Sonics Network for AMBA® Protocol), that supports both homogeneous and heterogeneous multicore SoCs. The SNAP tool provides a simple yet powerful environment to capture and optimize on-chip networks for a wide-range of multicore SoCs.

“While others talk about solving multicore issues, Sonics has actually been providing multicore SoC solutions to designers for more than 10 years,” said Jack Browne, senior vice president of sales and marketing. “We help SoC designers turn an on-chip network design into an IP block, which reduces engineering resources, decreases time-to-market, optimizes system performance and facilitates IP reuse. Ultimately, we provide the glue to use any IP, anytime, anywhere.”

Top semiconductor and consumer electronics companies around the world have incorporated Sonics’ solutions into a variety of products, including smart phones, HDTVs, slate computers, netbooks, wireless routers, game consoles, and more.

“Sonics has been a long-time innovator of multicore solutions and we’re proud to have them participate at Multicore Expo,” said Markus Levy, conference chair. “Conference attendees should visit the Sonics booth to learn more about the company’s solutions for simplifying complex multicore SoC designs for the highest speed video, and embedded wireless applications, among others.”

In order to serve a broad customer base, Sonics works with market-leading companies to support the entire ecosystem needed for complex SoC development. They include EDA vendors that provide tools for architecture design and exploration, along with SoC assembly and test. Sonics also works with other IP vendors that provide customers with complementary IP products such as processors and memory subsystems.

Sonics partner companies attending Multicore Expo include:

Cadence® Design Systems – Booth 1308; Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today's integrated circuits and electronics. Sonics works with Cadence to ensure that customers’ SoC designs meet the low-power requirements needed in both the wireless market, to provide the longest battery life, and in the wired market for overall power efficiency. Sonics leverages the Cadence Encounter® Digital Implementation System that enables customers to specify power information at the full-chip level and have that description implemented down to the gate-level in Sonics IP. This combined capability offers superior time-to-market advantages, with a mature low-power implementation and verification flow for complex, power-enabled IP.

MIPS® Technologies – Booth 2410; MIPS is a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores that power some of the world’s most popular products for the home entertainment, communications, networking and portable multimedia markets. MIPS leverages Sonics’ advanced on-chip network solution in its FPGA-based development systems and test chips to provide a flexible test and development environment in support of its MIPS32® processor cores. At the show, MIPS Technologies will demonstrate many of these cores including its MIPS32 1004K™ Coherent Processing System (CPS), the industry’s only multithreaded multiprocessor IP core. MIPS will also demonstrate its new MIPS32 M14K™ family. With a compact footprint and efficient design, the M14K cores are an ideal complement for use with Sonics’ SNAP product.

Synopsys® – Booth 715; Synopsys is a world leader in electronic design automation (EDA) supplying the global electronics market with the software, IP and services used in semiconductor design, verification and manufacturing. Sonics and Synopsys work together on both EDA and IP products. For IP solutions, Sonics provides complete memory subsystems for the highest efficiency DRAM access based on Sonics’ advanced DRAM scheduler and Synopsys’ DesignWare® DDR Memory Controllers and PHYs. Sonics combines these products into a single optimized IP block that is used in the highest speed multicore SoCs. Sonics also collaborates with Synopsys to include Synopsys’ DesignWare Verification IP for AMBA and OCP with Sonics’ on-chip network and DRAM memory subsystems. For EDA solutions, Synopsys supports Sonics’ IP in its advanced system-level architecture design tools. These tools enable designers to develop SoC architectures with advanced SystemC models.

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. Sonics’ products optimize memory access, seamlessly manage on-chip network traffic, accelerate system performance and reduce power consumption in SoCs with advanced voice, data and video features—including those found in home entertainment, networking, wireless, 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 for the embedded market, Sonics has enabled its customers to ship more than 750 million 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.