Industry's Most Cost-Effective and Power-Efficient Dual-CPU Integrated Network Processor Brings Enterprise Systems to Homes and Small Businesses
Hsinchu, Taiwan and Mountain View, Calif., September 11, 2006 -- Faraday Technology (TAIEX: 3035), a leading IP and ASIC provider, today announced it is supplying dual-core network processor SoC design to Storm Semiconductor for its Gemini™ family targeting IP set-top-box, VoIP gateway, media server with RAID, NAS and gigabit router gateway markets. Faraday's market-proven ARM-architecture FA526 CPU cores and SoC design expertise accelerated the successful development of this high-speed, low-power and cost-effective NPU SoC for Storm.
Much of the motivation for building a multi-core processor comes from the increasing difficulty of improving processor performance by increasing the operating frequency. Multi-core design can make use of proven CPU core library designs and produce a high-performance SoC with lower risk of design error. Other advantages of multi-core SoCs over using discrete CPUs include: reduced latency, higher clock rate for cache coherency circuitry, lower power consumption, and smaller die size.
Storm's Gemini product line deploys dual 32-bit Faraday ARM-Compatible FA CPU cores to provide 800 MIPS (400 MIPS per CPU) of processing performance, with 60% less power dissipation when compared with industry leaders' solutions. In addition to its mere 1.5W total power consumption, the IC also features programmable power management for power sensitive applications. This chip also packed with integrated functions such as dual Gigabit Ethernet MAC, dual USB2.0 host & device selectable interfaces, a 66MHz 32-bit PCI interface, dual IDE (parallel-ATA and serial-ATA) hard-drive controllers, a DDR memory controller, feature rich hardware security engine, and a proprietary NetEngine TCP/IP protocol accelerator. Faraday's broad IP portfolio and solid SoC integration flow helped Storm complete the SoC design in time.
"Faraday has played a key role in the success of Storm's Gemini SoC," said Dr. Stewart Wu, President and CEO of Storm Semiconductor. "By levering Faraday's market-proven IPs and SoC design expertise, we can focus on our core competence and application software development."
"Faraday's and Storm's engineering teams worked together closely to ensure the complex dual-core SoC design meet both the high performance and low power dissipation requirements of the networking and home market," said Dr. George Hwang, Vice President of R&D and Marketing at Faraday. "I'm extremely delighted that Faraday's long, established relationship with Storm has resulted yet another successful SoC project."
About Faraday Technology Corporation
Faraday Technology Corporation is a leading silicon IP and fabless ASIC vendor. The company's broad SIP portfolio includes 32-bit RISC CPUs, DSPs, MPEG4, H.264, PHYs/Controllers for USB 2.0, 10/100 Ethernet, Serial ATA, PCI Express, Cell Library and Memory Compiler. With more than 650 employees and 2005 revenue of US$175 million, Faraday is one of the largest fabless ASIC companies in the Asia-Pacific region, and it also has a significant presence in other world-wide markets. Headquartered in Taiwan , Faraday has service and support offices around the world, including the U.S., Japan, Europe, and China. For more information, please visit: www.faraday-tech.com.
About Storm Semiconductor, Inc.
Storm Semiconductor, Inc. is an emerging leader in embedded network processing, multimedia content transport, and storage solutions for both enterprise and home networks. Storm delivers easy to use, cost effective broadband communication and network solutions covering NAS, secured VoIP, media server and gateway, dual band WiFi AP, WiFi mesh network, and integrated EPON CPE. Storm is also the leading provider of system-on-a-chip, gigabit switches and transceivers, and software solutions such as consumer network QoS, and hardware acceleration engine. For more information please visit www.stormsemi.com.
Gemini, NetEngine, CentriNAS, CentriMedia, Centroid are trademarks of Storm Semiconductor, Inc.