Oct 31, 2009 Shanghai, China–October 31, 2009 – S2C Inc., an advanced system-on-chip(SoC)design solutions provider, today announced that both S2C's application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) prototyping hardware and software have been widely adopted in Actions Semiconductor's SoC design flow. Actions Semiconductor now employs S2C's Virtex-5 TAI Logic Modules, FPGA-based prototyping systems, and TAI Player Pro, SoC prototyping automation software, to enact SoC design creations, verifications, and demonstrations before silicon devices are fabricated. Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd. is one of China's leading fabless semiconductor companies that provides mixed-signal and multimedia SoC solutions for portable consumer electronics.
Effective ASIC prototyping using field programmable gate array (FPGA) has been one of the critical factors enabling Actions Semiconductor to deliver competitive SoC in the market; and therefore, the decision to adopt which external tool for ASIC prototyping has been difficult. "The task of building in-house FPGA prototypes has become tedious as multiple of the biggest FPGA devices are needed on one prototyping board to fit our design size, and thus we have come to a point where we have chosen to rely on a professional partner to assist us," said Mr. Fang Liang, the Senior Manager of System Department, Actions Semiconductor. "After careful evaluation, we have chosen S2C's Virtex-5 TAI Logic Module as our ASIC prototyping platform. Not only is S2C's prototyping hardware of high performance and reliability, S2C also provides comprehensive software that eases the set up and debug phases of FPGA prototyping."
S2C's Virtex-5 TAI Logic Module prototyping hardware has great usage flexibility with features such as multiple voltage settings, programmable on-board clock sources, and dual DDR2 SO-DIMM SoCket support. Using multiple of the latest Xilinx Virtex5-LX series FPGA, this product can fit designs up to 12 million ASIC gates and each FPGA can access more than 1000 I/O pins. Foremost among advanced features is the ability to run TAI Logic Module's key functions from a PC via an on-board USB interface. Users can download to FPGA, generate clocks, and self-test hardware through the TAI Player runtime software provided with the TAI Logic Module. With the newly released TAI Player Pro software, v3.1, users can partition and compile a design into multiple FPGA devices and debug using multi-FPGA internal logic analyzer (ILA), which dramatically increases the productivity of SoC designers by enabling the simultaneous debugging of designs partitioned to multiple FPGAs.
"It is S2C's focus to relieve our customers from various tedious SoC prototyping jobs including FPGA board design, layout, manufacturing, assembly, test and debug, and to facilitate our customers concentration on SoC design and verification jobs to ensure that the chips they design compete well in the market," said Mon-Ren Chene, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of S2C. We are delighted that Actions Semiconductor, a respected firm that is recognized as one of the leading multimedia application processor chip vendors, has recognized the quality and versatility of S2C's products. We are committed to providing the best technical support to Actions and look forward to helping Actions accelerate the SoC design and verification cycle."
About Actions
Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd., a NASDAQ-listed IC design company was co-founded by a strong design team with experienced staff from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Silicon Valley. It has become a well-known world class IC design company, designing and developing SoC VLSI products and total system solutions since 2001. Equipped with years of designing and manufacturing experience, the business covers IC design, solution development, testing, and sales. In 2003 and 2004, Actions was named one of China's top 10 fastest growing IC design companies by the China Semiconductor AsSoCiation.
About S2C
Founded and headquartered in San Jose, California, S2C is the leading total solution provider in facilitating systems to chip innovations. S2C has four solutions for system-on-chip (SoC) development:
Rapid SoC prototyping on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)
Third-party silicon intellectual properties (IP)
Customizable, zero mask-charge eASIC semiconductor devices
SoC design, prototype and production Servicess
S2C's value proposition is our highly qualified engineering team and customer-focused sales force that understands our customers' commercial needs in SoC development. S2C's unique FPGA-based electronic system level (ESL) solution, using our patented TAI IP technology, enables designers employ silicon IP to quickly assemble SoC prototypes on FPGA easily and securely, thereby enabling customers to start software development, typically the long pole item in development schedules, immediately. Combining rapid prototyping methodologies with a comprehensive portfolio of silicon IP and advanced design solutions, S2C can reduce the SoC design cycle by up to nine months.
S2C currently has 3 direct offices located in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen to meet the demand for accelerated SoC design activities in China. S2C is also the organizer of the annual SoCIP seminar and exhibition in China, which brings SoC designers/professionals from the Asia-Pacific region together with international silicon IP and SoC solution vendors.
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For more information, please contact:
Lawrence Liang, Sales Director of China Region, S2C Inc. +86 21 6887 9287, lawrencel@s2cinc.com
Lam Cheng En, Marketing Consultant, S2C Inc., +86 21 6887 9287, lamce@s2cinc.com
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