STMicro won't use ARM's 3-D core in Nomadik processor

STMicro won't use ARM's 3-D core in Nomadik processor
By Junko Yoshida, EE Times
February 21, 2003 (12:00 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030221S0026

CANNES, France — In a move other chip makers call surprising, STMicroelectronics will not use ARM Ltd.'s 3-D graphics hardware acceleration core in its new Nomadik application processor platform.

"We will be shortly announcing a technology partner" to add a 3-D graphics hardware acceleration core to Nomadik, said Marco Rossi, ST's marketing manager for Nomadik, a processor based on an ARM 32-bit RISC core. 3-D hardware acceleration "must be done in a very power-efficient manner," Rossi said Thursday (Feb. 20) at the 3GSM World Congress, so ST is taking a graphics path independent of ARM's MBX graphics core.

ST's decision is surprising not only because Nomadik uses the ARM926EJ-S processor core, but because of the close relationship between ST and ARM. ST developed Nomadik after licensing ARM's PrimeXsys platform, thereby gaining access to RTL code describing the peripherals, driver source code and tools. Such access allows a lic ensee to extend the platform, according to ARM.

ARM has been pushing to expand the PrimeXsys community by offering a number of hardware and software intellectual property cores — all proven to work well with ARM processors, ARM said.

Integrating such cores is considered "low-risk," but ST has decided to innovate its 3-D graphics solution with another technology partner in hopes of maximizing the performance and lowering the power consumption of its Nomadik application processor.

Dae-Hyun Lee, manager of product planning at Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., said his company is still in the process of selecting a 3-D graphics partner and hardware acceleration architecture for Samsung's ARM-based application processor, the S3C2410.