Power Alliance
The companies want to focus on developing technology that enables ARM processor based system-on-chip (SoC) devices to dynamically adjust performance and power consumption to maximise energy conservation. Proof-of-concept demonstrations of Nationals PowerWise and ARMs Intelligent Energy Manager technologies will be on display at electronica 2002, November 12-15, in Munich, Germany.
PowerWise is an umbrella solution that will be developed in several phases. The first phase will target embedded SoC devices in mobile phones. The heart of the solution is a synthesisable macrocell using ARMs open AMBA chip bus infrastructure. The macrocell communicates with external PowerWise power management ICs. The Intelligent Energy Manager solution implements algorithms to optimally balance processor workload and energy consumption, while maximising system responsiveness.
National and ARM are working jointly with lead partners and third parties to standardise the software programmers model and the PowerWise high-speed, low-power interface between the SoC device and the external power management chip.
The joint solution will sample to key customers in Q2 2003. Customers will be able to license the PowerWise synthesisable core directly from ARM and the external power supply chips from National.