*****For immediate use February 5th, 2002
NEC Develops Ultra High-Speed Interface IP Core for System LSI Chips
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| "High-Speed Interface IP Core" |
TOKYO, February 4, 2002-NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY) announced today the development of a super-fast serial interface IP core, an essential component of system LSIs used in the next-generation broadband network and high-end servers.
The new IP core enables high-speed data transmission of 5Gb/s between system LSIs, and equipment employing system LSIs. This ultra-fast transmission rate can be further dramatically improved by using multiple IP cores simultaneously. A system LSI with 20 IP core units would enable a transmission rate of 100 Gb/s, which is comparable to sending out about three DVDs, or about six-hours worth of video data per second, doubling the data transfer rate between system LSIs that employ the current high-speed interface IP core. The new IP core, which doubles the performance of network equipment using two thirds of the space, compared with the equipment using the current IP core, is expected to become an essential component of high-performance network equipment used for next-generation broadband networks.
The following technological achievements have led to the development of the new IP core.
- New signal receiver technology prevents the hold stage - the function that temporarily retains input signals - from lowering the operational speed of the entire input circuit by aligning the input-stage and hold-stage circuits in cascade structure -the two circuits have been until now placed in a stacked structure layout - increasing the voltage input on each circuit. The input circuit amplifies input signals while the hold-stage circuit temporarily retains the amplified input signals. This technology makes it possible to accurately receive attenuated transmission signals caused by long-distance cable transmission, achieving a data transmission rate of 5 Gb/s per cable or wire between system LSIs, about 1.5 times faster than the current peak speed of about 3Gb/s, even using inexpensive transmission cable or wire.
- The data transmission time aligning technology freely extracts and adds a part of the data in transmission and aligns the arrival time of data between cables. A new multi-channel aligner adjusts the speed of incoming signals between multiple IP-core units and making them arrive at the same time. These technologies have expanded the loading capacity of IP core in a single system LSI to more than 20 units from the current ten.
Due to the arrival of the advanced IT society, demand for enhanced performance of high-speed computer servers and network equipment, the backbone of the next-generation broadband network, is increasing quickly. High-speed data transmission between LSIs is particularly important to enhance the performance of high-speed computer servers and network equipment. The serial transmission scheme, which improves the transmission speed by aligning data and transmitting it in series over a wire at high speed, has been the transmission scheme of choice. However, this scheme has encountered problems such as the distortion of waveform due to attenuation of signals over the wire, which makes it difficult to transmit data over long distance at high-speed. Also, it is difficult to align the timing between IP core units when multiple IP core units are employed, and consequently further improvement in the transmission performance had been hampered.
NEC believes the new ultra high-speed interface IP core will be an essential component in differentiating its system LSIs, which are to be used in the future high-speed computer server and network equipment. Through aggressive research and development activities, NEC plans to commercialize the IP core as an IP core for cell-base IC and as an ASSP (application specific standard product) in the second-half of the next fiscal year ending March, 2003.
Results of the research will be presented at the International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC 2002) to be held in San Francisco from February 4 to 6.
About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) is a leading provider of Internet solutions, dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its customers in the key computer, network and electron device fields through its three market-focused in-house companies: NEC Solutions, NEC Networks and NEC Electron Devices. NEC Corporation, with its in-house companies, employs approximately 150,000 people worldwide and saw net sales of 5,409 billion Yen (approx. US$43 billion) in fiscal year 2000-2001. For further information, please visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec.com
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