S3 Group and Cognovo to accelerate Software Modem System-on-Chip Design

Dublin, Ireland, April 24 th, 2012 - S3 Group today announced that it has partnered with Cognovo to provide System-on-Chip (SoC) design services alongside Cognovo’s Modem Compute Engine IP for Software Defined Modem in order to accelerate time to market. S3 Group initially collaborated with Cognovo to create their Software Defined Baseband SoC ‘CDC160’ on Samsung’s 45nm CMOS process technology. This device was showcased recently at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona as the first public demonstration of silicon carrying out LTE Advanced Carrier Aggregation.

S3 Group is a global provider of Mixed Signal, Analog, RF and Power Management semiconductor IP solutions and Design Services, whilst Cognovo Ltd spun out of ARM in 2009 to develop and deliver a Software Defined Modem (SDM) platform for use in low power, high volume silicon. The SoC designed by Cognovo and S3 Group is already in use by companies developing software modems for a wide range of wireless communications standards including WiFi, 3G W-CDMA, HSPA+, LTE and LTE Advanced.

The S3 Group contribution to CDC160 ranged from the development of complex digital blocks and full system-on-chip integration and verification to physically implementing the design in silicon. S3 Group’s design, integration and implementation services were delivered on-time and against a very aggressive schedule.

“S3 Group’s input to the SoC design, verification and advanced low power implementation of the CDC160 SoC enabled Cognovo to focus on our core competencies, and ensure we were delivering a market leading solution. We were impressed with how S3 Group took pro-active responsibility for translating our high level requirements into a robust design. They demonstrated a high degree of flexibility and maturity, ensuring that the program was always first priority and proved to be the right choice of partner for us on this project. Based on this shared experience we agreed to partner going forward to accelerate our customers’ design-ins of Cognovo’s Modem Compute Engine within their larger SoCs.” said Gordon Aspin, CEO of Cognovo.

“Introducing new modems for leading edge wireless technologies represents a significant engineering challenge where SoC design and verification is critical to success. Cognovo’s SoC demanded experienced and proven engineering skills and we are pleased that by partnering with Cognovo we will be able to offer these skills to our mutual customers in their future product developments. Cognovo are innovators in developing Software Defined Modem solutions and it is a testament to our 25 years’ experience and domain knowledge that we were chosen to partner with them to design, verify and implement their silicon device.” said Dermot Barry, VP Silicon, S3 Group.

About S3 Group:

S3 Group delivers IP and professional services to OEMs, system vendors and semiconductor companies. The company is the longest serving independent service provider in the industry, building a wealth of experience and engineering expertise over the last 25 years. In addition to design services the company has a comprehensive portfolio of RF and mixed-signal IP. The IP portfolio includes high performance ADC and DAC converters, PLLs, Analog Front Ends (AFEs), Power Management, RF Transceivers and other miscellaneous circuits which have been silicon proven at a number of silicon foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, UMC, SMIC, IBM, Tower) at nodes ranging from 180nm to 40nm and below. Global end markets served by S3 Group clients include Wireless and Wireline Communications, Digital Broadcasting, Imaging, Solar, Green Energy and Industrial. Founded in 1986, S3 Group, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, focuses on three business areas: Semiconductor, TV Technology and Telehealth, and has development centers in Ireland, USA, Poland, Czech Republic and Portugal with sales offices and representatives worldwide. For further information please visit www.s3group.com/silicon and www.twitter.com/S3Group_Silicon

About Cognovo

Cognovo’s Software Defined Modem (SDM) platform enables manufacturers to create flexible multi-mode devices capable of operating a dynamic mix of cellular, wireless and broadcast standards such as HSPA+, LTE, LTE-A, WiFi, WiGig, DVB, DMB. The platform delivers multi-mode products with silicon area and power consumption lower than the hardware designs which exist today and in a fraction of the time. We call this intelligent wireless.

The Cognovo SDM platform comprises the Modem Compute Engine (MCE), a licensable processor sub-system; the run-time SDM Operating System (SDM-OS) and a fully integrated soft modem development suite. More details are available at: www.cognovo.com/products.www.cognovo.com