ARM Upgrades Core Tech, Adds GPU Support - Page 2

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Keynotes, Cypress Semiconductor and more

You know a show is modest when the keynotes are in the exhibit hall, right next to the demo booths. Such was the case here, as the show kicked off with a keynote by Cypress Semiconductor founder and CEO T.J. Rodgers.

Rodgers, one of the Silicon Valley's most celebrated chip engineers who does not work for Intel, showed how embedded technology and programmable system on a chip (PSoC) could be applied to his winery, dubbed Clos De La Tech, where he makes Pinot Noir wines.

Rodgers, a PhD in electrical engineering, also has a background in chemistry and physics. He learned that if grapes got more sunlight, they would be rich in certain flavinoids like Quercetin, so he removed the leaves from the grapevines to increase sun exposure. But then he learned if the grapes got above a certain temperature, they would lose their color.

So what does a good tech geek do? He embeds temperature sensors in some grapes and ties them to a sprinkler system that sprays water on them when the temperature gets too high.

"A programmable system can do a function you never thought of if you have a few hours. The moral of that story is programmable systems allow you to solve problems you didn't know existed for customers you haven't met," said Rodgers.

This led into a talk about programmable systems on a chip that only an electrical engineer would find fascinating or be able to follow. One hundred and two slides flew by in 50 minutes and he rarely stopped for a breath. In the end, he was asking the audience for ideas.

"I want to map PSoCs onto a new area. We got microcontrollers pretty well covered. Do we want to look at DSP world? Ethernet nodes?" he asked the audience. "Those are directions and we're really scratching our head and I would really appreciate ideas from you," he added, before giving out his e-mail address to the audience.

He was followed by Mike Muller, CTO of ARM, who discussed how ARM's business model is based on partnership. "We have a competitor not far from here with a slightly grayer view of the world with a slightly standard product churned out in volume," he said of Intel, one exit down the Interstate 101 freeway.

ARM's partner model has resulted in 15 billion parts shipped to market, and in the new era of the Internet, you have more people browsing the Internet with mobile devices than you have browsing on PCs.

Software, he said, has become increasingly important. "It's easy to talk about hardware things but it's about delivering systems with software into the hands of consumers. Building systems is about having a strong community to provide all the things you need. From our side, it's about providing a process roadmap, the cores, the tools to program and graphics units to accelerate it," he said.

The opportunities ahead for ARM are in the tens of billions of handheld devices, rather than the hundreds of millions of PC, he added.