The ARM SD Card PrimeCell peripheral is claimed to represent the first product in a range of Secure Audio solutions. Its targeted market application, the SD Memory Card, is a nonvolatile, solid-state flash device that is roughly the size of a postage stamp.

At present the card comes in 32-, 64- and 128-Mbyte sizes and is said to allow fast, secure download and storage of all types of digital files. Companies such as Panasonic, Palm, SanDisk and Toshiba are among the manufacturers that are driving SD Card usage by providing end products that can be used in such consumer equipment as MP3 players, digital cameras and camcorders.

ARM's independent, soft-IP PrimeCell peripheral includes a host interface core and a secure software stack for implementation of SD Card-based products.

The company said its semiconductor partners will be able to offer OEMs a quicker time-to-market for secure digital audio products that are built around an Amba interface-compliant SoC solution by reducing the integration issues facing full-system designers.

The ARM SD Card Host Interface is available for licensing now, with delivery expected in the third quarter.

The agreement with SiS, meanwhile, will allow that company to integrate ARM cores into future core logic products for PCs. SiS also plans to use the ARM7-TDMI core to develop networking and communications products.

SiS plans to make products based on the ARM7TDMI core available in the fourth quarter of 2002.

Visit www.sdcard.org and www.arm.com.

ARC International plc has licensed its customizable processor technology to QLogic Corp., which will use the processor in a new generation of storage-area network (SAN) infrastructure components. According to the companies, QLogic will implement the core in iSCSI (Internet SCSI) technology products.

QLogic's controller chips are built directly into system motherboards, as well as into such storage devices as disk drives, redundant arrays of independent disks, tape drives and tape libraries.

The company also produces host adapter boards that plug into computer systems and storage subsystems, and it develops SAN switch and switch-management products.

The QLogic iSCSI engineering team is developing the iSCSI for use in adapters and storage controllers to enable a new generation of Ethernet SANs.

QLogic said the iSCSI solution will include hardware-based TCP/IP acceleration for high-performance SAN implementations in Ethernet-based storage architectures.

Visit www.qlogic.com and www.arccores.com.