We Will Keep Developing Strongarm, Says Intel

After the Intel-Digital deal, doubts had been expressed about the continuance of teh StrongARM microprocessor, used in game devices and handheld comuting devices. But Intel has put all such doubts to rest. The company has finalised an agreement with Advanced Risc Machines, the Cambridge, England-based microprocessor designer, to continue production and development of Digital Equipment Corps popular 32-bit RISC StrongARM processor. Details will be unveiled at the Embedded Systems 1998 show in Stuttgart, Germany.

Despite Intels dominance of the desktop processor market and an increasing presence in servers and workstations, the $25bn giant is currently weak in the small mobile and embedded microprocessor market - its i960 offering is losing market share in a rapidly expanding market.

 

Should Intel now decide to actively push StrongARM, the deal could help ARM CEO Robin Saxby achieve his ambition of selling 100 million ARM processors annually by the turn of the century.

Digitals StrongARM team was transferred to Intel in October as part of its litigation settlement, but the deal was subject to the successful renegotiation of an agreement with ARM, which supplies the core StrongARM design.

At the time there was speculation regarding Intels real enthusiasm for taking on StrongARM, given the companys not made here mentality. ARM, a fab-less, chip-less developer, earns its revenues from selling its core designs to third-parties, typically large multinational electronics companies such as NEC, Rockwell, Samsung and Sony. Royalties from partners account for approximately 50 per cent of revenues and the company also sells services such as consulting and training.

The StrongARM processor was the result of collaboration between ARM and Digital. It was intended to mitigate the running costs of Digitals under-used Hudson, Massachusetts foundry, as well as adding a high-speed processor to ARMs line-up. Running at between 100MHz and 233MHz, it is capable of executing up to 300 dhrystone MIPS (million instructions per second), which makes it comparable to standard Intel Pentium processors, but it consumes less than 15 per cent of the power, making it more suitable for mobile computing than standard Intel gas-guzzlers.

Spyglass beats Sun and Microsoft to set-top deal with Nokia

Spyglass has beaten Sun Microsystems and Microsoft to get its browser software onto the next generation of interactive set-top boxes manufactured by Finnish telecommunications and electronics company Nokia Oy.

The deal is an extension of an agreement made last year to get its Prism content conversion software, onto handheld devices including mobile phones.

Nokia is licensing Spyglasss Device Mosaic Engine 3.0 for around $300,000, but will also pay a per copy license fee that will become a significant revenue stream for the loss-making Spyglass.

Nokia is going to use the Spyglass software, as an HTML-API to run underneath applications such as mail software and electronic program guides.

Nokias second generation of Digital Video Broadcast standard compatible set-tops will be launched before year end, to receive digital TV services and interactive/internet information, using all transmission mediums - terrestrial, satellite or cable.

Nokia has already shipped one million DVB compliant set-tops to the European market and Spyglass was chosen because it can deliver internet software for a low processing power set-top that costs less than $300. Nokia and Spyglass both claim that PersonalJava and Windows CE need heftier processing power and memory than is currently available in current set-tops.

Spyglass claims to be able to do it using lower cost and power processors, which in Nokias case is Motorolas 68300 family of ColdFire processors running Motorolas Real Time Embedded Kernel as the operating system. Spyglass is also skeptical about the big set-top deal that happened last December, when General Instrument Inc won a $4.5bn contract from the nine affiliated cable companies led by cable giant Tele-Communications Inc to build Windows CE and Personal Java set tops for anything under $300, without subsidies.

However, Nokia isnt yet actively trying to break into the US set-top market, although it will make its products compatible with the US cable set-top interoperability standard OpenCable.

Nokia is more interested in following DVB implementation, and it doesnt reckon that there is any opportunity for DVB set-tops in the US, and instead the second market to take off after Europe, will be Asia.

Spyglass, which signed a similar agreement going with Thomson Consumer Electronics Inc earlier this month, claims to also have a joint development deal in the labs in the Philips Electronics NV.