Socle Partners with Catena, CoreSonic to Drive Wireless SoC Platform in 65nm as Mobile Solution

HSIN-CHU, TAIWAN – June 1, 2009 – Socle Technology Corporation, a professional SoC platform and service provider with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. as its major share holder, today announced its partnership with Catena and CoreSonic to develop a comprehensive design platform on Chartered’s 65nm process with integrateable wireless subsystems.  Socle contributes its integrated and silicon-proven ARM9 and ARM11 design platforms. Catena provides its wireless subsystems for WiFi, WiMAX, and GPS functions, and CoreSonic offers its proven Wifi/WiMax baseband IP.

The partnership enables a comprehensive solution architecture that meets the “high-performance and “low power” demands of personal mobile products.  Socle’s ARM-based SoC platform with ARM9 and ARM11 cores provides the basis of the SoC design, while Catena’s wireless RF IP with Coresonic’s Wifi/WiMax baseband IP enable the wireless RF functionalities to be integrated on the same SoC.  Modularity in the design approach allows system-level companies to work with these partners to define a highly optimized, high-performance and low-power device for a diverse range of mobile applications, such as Netbook, MID (mobile internet devices), PMP (personal media players), PND (personal navigation devices), DSC (digital still cameras), etc.

 “The types of wireless-enabled products being developed by our mutual customers require a high level of IP integration to support the growing feature sets requested by consumers,” said Chou-Te Kang, vice president of R&D at Socle.  “The 65nm technology supports a wide portfolio of proven IPs for SOC integration.  Socle’s expertise in ARM9 and ARM11 integration leverages the ecosystem supported and allows for efficient customization of the feature set requested by customers to bring their products to market faster and with lower risk.”

Socle’s ARM9 and ARM11 cores on its SoC platforms are able to respectively reach the very impressing speeds of 500MHz and 700MHz in 65nm low power process.  Socle’s platform has integrated the 3D graphic Mali-200, USB2.0 OTG, DSP, complete memory subsystem, and many other IPs to make it a versatile platform for quick customization.  Socle provides platforms that are not only silicon-proven but also system-proven by integrating hardware and software on the development kits.  With wireless enablement, Socle’s ARM9 platform could be easily adopted to MID(mobile internet devices), PMP(personal media players), PND(personal navigation devices), and DSC(digital still cameras).  The ARM11 can be applied to Netbook, Thin Client, HMC(Home Media Center), and other high end consumer electronics.  By optimizing ARM hardened core to reach higher performances on a low power process, Socle extracts the best features of ARM-based SoC architecture.

The evolution of consumer electronics is speeding up.  The quick and low-risk integration of new functions has become a crucial factor for the short time-to-market electronic product life-cycle.  The wireless functionalities contributed by Catena and CoreSonic for integration into Socle SoC platforms provides customers a fast, fully integrated, and full feature solution for the development of their new products.  By leveraging 3rd party expertise, system companies can focus their development efforts by creating differentiation at the system and software level.  As communication specifications transition from 3G to 4G, increase SoC performance and increased wireless functionalities are demanded by the consumers.  The most distinguished features that fit end customer’s expectation are the co-existence of “high-performance” and “low-power”, which is believed to be the new standard of next generation consumer electronics.

About Socle
Socle Technology Corporation, founded in 2001 and invested by Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. in June 2008 as a strategic partner, is well-recognized as a leading-edge provider of SoC design and implementation services as well as an architect for more complicated SoC design technology in advanced process nodes.  Socle has developed some of the best ARM hardcore and ARM embedded SoC platform among ARM solution providers worldwide.  For the best design service with the one-stop-shop convenience, Socle works closely with Chartered and other world-class partners of IP, EDA, and assembly and testing.  Socle website: www.socle-tech.com