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NEC signs with ARM for 'Thumb'

CAMBRIDGE, England (September 15) -- In a major breakthrough for its RISC processor, Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. (ARM) has signed NEC Corp.'s Systems ASIC division as the 10th licensee for its ARM core. The move should help push the small and low-power 32-bit RISC architecture into a wider range of applications. But it is also creating conflict, both within the ARM partner community and inside NEC itself.

Meanwhile, ARM was among the vendors linking up with several software suppliers at last week's Embedded Systems Conference (see ESC wrapup ).

NEC's new license covers the ARM7TDMI core, the so-called Thumb variant, whose reworked 16-bit instruction format tailors it for 16-bit memory spaces. By deselecting the on-chip Thumb preprocessor, the 16-bit instructions expand to their original format, which means NEC will be able to offer the core for 32-bit systems as well.

But that puts ARM into direct competition with NEC's own mini-RISC core, the V800 series. The Tokyo company still hopes to m igrate the V800 from the Japan market to Europe and the United States, where the key designs for desktop boxes, multimedia systems and mobile communicators are being done.

Moreover, it raises hackles among current ARM licensees, who face a weighty competitor in NEC. To date, ARM Ltd., based here, has been scrupulous in licensing only to companies that did not directly compete against existing ARM partners.

"Clearly this is an important endorsement of the architecture, but let's say we were not entirely enthusiastic about it," said a source at VLSI Technology Inc. (San Jose, Calif.), which has ARM chips in production.

NEC is reckoned to be the world's largest provider of application-specific ICs. Its ASIC division accounts for $1.4 billion in revenues annually and is growing at a 40 percent clip this year.

The ARM license arose when Nokia and other large European cellular-phone makers, which have developed software for the ARM MCU, began pressuring NEC to support the core in its 0.5-micron library.

"Some of our big customers like ARM, because Advanced RISC Machines is a European company and they want to support European intellectual property," said Hirokazu Hashimoto, head of the ASIC division. "Others say the fact that the core comes from various vendors, and is independent of some big company, makes it a better choice."

Two RISC cores

But choosing ARM puts NEC in the uncomfortable position of promoting two RISC cores.

"We're torn in a situation like this," said Kenji Kani, the vice president in charge of both the ASIC and microcomputer divisions. "In our company, every division has its own responsibility for P&L, and the managers make their decisions on that basis. But even the ASIC division must support NEC's own intellectual property."

Kani said he believes NEC's V830 is the preferred solution for MCU customers. "In terms of performance, power consumption and chip size, the V800 series is more suitable for embedded applications than ARM," he said.

Pete Magowan, European business manag er at ARM, said NEC plans to use 0.5- and 0.35-micron CMOS processes to build the ARM core. Initial engineering was expected to start later this year, with production beginning in the second half of 1996.

NEC has publicly pledged to produce and market the Thumb core worldwide, but sources within the company said it would actually be focusing on the European market.

Kani said NEC will "primarily" support existing European customers that have developed software running on ARM. U.S. customers seeking ARM support will be referred to engineers sent from NEC Electronics Europe, he said.

Bruno Faller, marketing manager for microprocessors and digital signal processing at NEC Electronics Europe, said that in Europe, strategic projects based on the ARM7TDMI were already under discussion.

NEC reportedly sees little demand for ARM in Japan. Though relatively tiny Asahi Kasei uses the ARM core for cellular phones, ARM's biggest Japanese partner, Sharp, has used its license sparingly. Even Sharp's newest personal digital assistant, the Zaurus 6000, is expected to use Hitachi's SH series.

Sharp, VLSI Technology and the U.K.'s GEC Plessey Semiconductors are ARM licensees with chips already in production. Licensees with chips in development include Asahi Kasei, Cirrus Logic, Digital Semiconductor, Samsung and Texas Instruments.

Long cushioned by ARM Ltd.'s kid-gloves attitude toward licensing to competitors, some of the partners are said to be less than enthused about NEC coming aboard.

VLSI Technology has been essentially the exclusive ASIC vendor for ARM cores. When Texas Instruments Inc. (Dallas) got a license, it was on the understanding that TI would use the core only in pursuit of proprietary relationships in the automotive industry.

The first big crack in this strategy of harmony came when Cirrus Logic Inc. (Fremont, Calif.) signed on to ARM, reportedly to produce an integrated chip for a new generation of low-cost Apple Newton products. That put Cirrus more or less in competition with VLSI Technology and GEC Plessey, both of which had supplied ARM microprocessors to Apple.

But NEC's System ASIC operation is clearly a direct, across-the-board competitor for VLSI Technology. The company's global reach and significant lead in CMOS processes could give it an enormous advantage against any of the ARM partners in almost any market.

Meanwhile, NEC is mounting a campaign to get its own V800 series established abroad. Hiring engineers and developing support software are high on the company's agenda.

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