Date: 6th Aug 2010
New licensing deal from EnSilica for 8051
licencees
EnSilica has announced a special licensing deal to encourage
existing 8051 licensees to switch their next ASIC design
start to an eSi-1600 16-bit soft processor core. For all
enquiries received before 31st January 2011 and subject
to Terms and Conditions, EnSilica is offering to match their
8051license fee.
"We have declared 'Open Season' on the 8051,"
said David Wheeler, Technical Director of EnSilica. "Where
a small and relatively inexpensive processor is required,
the 8051 is probably still the most popular choice. However,
the eSi-1600 offers considerable additional benefits over
even the most optimised 8051, particularly in terms of low
power and silicon area which are so important in today's
competitive marketplace. What's more, the eSi-1600 soft
processor core delivers these additional benefits at a very
competitive price."
EnSilica claims its eSi-1600 provides 65 times the performance
of the original 8051 (Dhrystone DMIPs/MHz) and more than
5 times the performance of the fastest, enhanced 8051. This
allows the clock to be disabled for 80% of the time relative
to an 8051, delivering significant power savings. Comparing
the Dhrystone kernel size, the eSi-1600's mixed 16/32-bit
instruction set occupies only 60% of the code size required
by the 8051, providing substantial savings in silicon area
and power associated with the program memory. The eSi-1600's
core size of just 8.5k gates is more than a match for even
the most optimised 8051.
"This offer to match their licensee fee gives 8051
users a truly compelling reason to reconsider their processor
options and migrate to the silicon-proven eSi-1600,"
commented Ian Lankshear, Managing Director of EnSilica.
"The 8051 has been a real work-horse of the electronics
industry but it cannot compete with the eSi-1600 in terms
of low power, silicon area and scalability. EnSilica's eSi-RISC
family of soft processor cores for embedded systems is unique
in being the only processor architecture scalable from 16
bits to 32 bits, enabling companies to secure their software
investment."
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