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Posted: April 13, 1998

Argonaut RISC Cores (ARC), which licenses a customizable and synthesizable 32-bit microprocessor core, is about to split off from its parent company, the London-based computer games developer Argonaut Software Ltd.

The company is several months away from complete demerger, which it expects will draw about $5 million from venture-capital firms in return for a stake in ARC. Rick Clucas, technical director, said the change of ownership would serve the best interests of both parts of Argonaut, allowing each to focus on core competencies in distinct markets.

Argonaut honed its chip-design skills in the early '90s on the StarFox game for Nintendo, for which it provided the SuperFX graphics-accelerator IC. The company organized into Argonaut Software and Argonaut Technologies in 1994.

Newport Wafer-Fab Ltd. and Artisan Components Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) have signed a multimillion-dollar deal in which the Welsh foundry gets distribution rights to Artisan's Process Perfect standard-cell and I/O libraries, and embedded SRAM generators for Newport's 0.5- and 0.35-micron CMOS technologies. The foundry will let customers and design partners use these libraries and generators for a nominal non-recurring engineering fee.

The companies call the agreement a breakthrough for foundry customers, who before had to buy the cell libraries or SRAM generators with no guarantee of how many designs they might derive. Having Newport buy the libraries helps spread the cost over a greater number of designs.

The cell libraries are designed with development of Newport's process introductions. As a result, fab customers are expected to see a substantial reduction in time-to-market, according to the companies.

Cell libraries and SRAM generators for 0.5-micron are available to Newport customers immediately. The company said customers can expect access to 0.35-micron cell libraries and SRAM generators by June 1998.

Programmable-logic vendor Altera Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.) has announced that PLD Applications (Paris) will offer a 64-bit PCI bus Target core through the Altera Megafunction Partners Program. Altera has run verification and recommends the core for applications such as networking and wireless communication, which need high-speed data transfer.

Altera said the core runs at 33 MHz, complying with PCI Local Bus Specification Rev. 2.1, and supports burst transfers up to 266 Mbytes/second. The core can be implemented on Altera's FLEX 10K and FLEX 6000 PLDs. It meets PCI thresholds using 440 logical cells-roughly equivalent to 25 percent of a FLEX 10K30A-3 for 3.3-V compliance, or 33 percent of a FLEX 6016-2 for 5-V compliance.

With the core, PLD Applications provides the target function and a user-definable back-end interface in VHDL or Altera Hardware Description Language (AHDL). The core can be evaluated free via Altera's OpenCore capability on PLD Applications' web site. Pricing for an encrypted net-list begins at $9,500, including symbol file, timing assignments, simulation file and installation guide.