Date: 15/06/2012

Sonics and Arasan collaborate to offer optimized MIPI-LLI and UFS IP

Sonics and Arasan have announced a joint agreement to provide SoC designers with end-to-end IP subsystems for popular mobile devices.

Sonics and Arasan will get into partnership to offer optimized MIPI Low Latency Interface (LLI) and Universal Flash Storage (UFS) subsystems, coupled with on-chip network and memory subsystems so that semiconductor and system companies can significantly streamline their IP integration process while increasing the performance of the resulting SoCs. These pre-configured and pre-verified subsystems will dramatically minimize the latency and power, and increase flash memory performance in smart phone and tablet SoCs, as well as other key mobile application processors.

A number of existing application processors combine Sonics and Arasan IP solutions to provide designers with increased SoC performance and advanced power efficiencies for embedded solutions used in some of the most popular mobile platforms around the world. Under the new joint agreement, Arasan MIPI and UFS interfaces will be integrated with Sonics' sophisticated development environment and system IP to ease system-level integration and increase SoC performance efficiencies for mobile applications.

Arasan says it is the only IP vendor to offer both the MIPI LLI controller IP along with a matching Type 1 M-PHY enabling low pin-count connectivity between chips on mobile platforms. Arasan is also the only provider of the JEDEC-compliant UFS link layer IP incorporating both the MIPI UniProSM link layer and a matching Type 1 M-PHY. With the newly combined solution, SoC designers can now use Sonics StudioXE development environment to simply drag and drop MIPI and UFS IP blocks onto the chip to work seamlessly with Sonics' leading portfolio of on-chip networks and memory subsystems.

"Our partnership with Arasan ensures that we can now offer a true end-to-end mobile interface subsystem for SoC designers, improve the delivered SoC performance, and streamline the arduous IP integration and performance optimization process," said Drew Wingard, Sonics' CTO. "The mobile market has exploded over the last two years and Sonics has aggressively innovated in response to the burgeoning cloud-connected mobile devices that SoCs are fueling. Our alliance with Arasan, including support for the new MIPI LLI and UFS standards, gives Sonics an even stronger global footprint in this fast-paced market and allows us to extend our product reach as we address the most critical mobile SoC design challenges."

For the ultimate peak-performance tablet and smart phone SoCs, designers can combine Sonics GN GHz NoC with UFS flash for memory access speeds up to 1.2 GB/sec using four lanes of Gear 2 M-PHY, and MIPI LLI for the lowest latency chip-to-chip communications.

"Today's mobile SoC market is moving very rapidly and provides little room for design error and time-to-market setbacks," said Andrew Haines, vice president of marketing at Arasan. "By partnering with the industry leader for on-chip networks and system IP for cloud-connected devices, Arasan and Sonics can help designers quickly achieve higher levels of QoS, greater IP interoperability and lower power with a near seamless design integration process for their most demanding mobile applications."

For more info, www.arasan.com and www.sonicsinc.com/blog