IMEC, Target collaborate on ultra-low power DSP

LEUVEN, BELGIUM: IMEC and Target Compiler Technologies, a leader in EDA tools for the design and programming of application-specific processors (ASIPs), announced that they have entered into a collaboration agreement aiming at advancing the state-of-the-art in ultra-low power system-on-chip design.

 The new collaboration fits in IMEC's R&D activities on wireless autonomous transducer solutions at the Holst Centre and will be centered around Target's Chess/Checkers tool-suite for ASIP design.

As part of the agreement, IMEC and residents of partners of the wireless autonomous transducer solutions program will have access to Target's Chess/Checkers tool suite to design and program novel ultra-low power ASIP cores that will become the computational heart of new autonomous wireless sensor nodes. Power efficiency of several hundred MOPS/mW is targeted. Also, IMEC and Target will jointly investigate new design methodologies to push the power efficiencies of programmable architectures to the next level.

Multi-processor system-on-chip platforms based on ASIPs hold the promise of meeting the ultra-low power challenges of wireless sensor nodes, thanks to their inherent parallelism and architectural specialization.

"We benchmarked Target's Chess/Checkers tools and found that the resulting ASIPs have power efficiencies comparable to fixed-function hardware while still offering post-silicon programmability," said Bert Gyselinckx, program director wireless autonomous transducer solutions at IMEC. "Programmability is important because of the required diversity, both in terms of radio standards and system functionality.

We expect that, through our collaboration with Target, we can further improve on power efficiencies for ASIP-based design as well as improve the ease of building extremely power-efficient wireless transducer systems," Gyselinckx added.

"Low-power requirements have been an important driver for the recent success of ASIPs," commented Gert Goossens, Target's CEO. "Target's tools have been adopted by several of the largest players in power-sensitive markets like wireless communications and portable multimedia. In the power-critical market of hearing instruments, Target today is the leading provider for processor technologies. Applications like wireless sensor networks will require even further innovation for power savings.

Our collaboration with the low-power experts of IMEC will enable us to further extend our ASIP design tools to remain at the forefront of ultra-low power design."

Within its ultra-low power DSP program for wireless autonomous transducer solutions, IMEC is developing novel signal processing techniques, architectures and devices for wireless sensor nodes. Such devices are intended to be used in high-tech industrial automation, as well as in healthcare applications, where the prospect of ultra-low-power wireless devices opens up whole new opportunities in personal care and well-being.

These nodes are typically powered by a tiny battery or an energy scavenger, and have power budgets under 100µW for the whole system, including radio processing, data processing and memories.