The handheld gaming market has suddenly become crowded. Long the sole territory of Nintendo’s Game Boy line, two new handheld game consoles have been released in the past year from Nokia and Tapwave. The entire gaming world is abuzz over the late 2004 entrance into the market of Sony, with its first handheld, the PlayStation Portable (PSP). Though all three emerging handheld platforms emphasize gaming, they offer other features that make them new types of consumer convergence devices.
The Nokia N-Gage is a handheld game platform and a fully functioning GSM mobile phone, as well as a portable digital audio player and an FM radio. Its Bluetooth capability allows in-room networked gaming among several competitors. Slow initial sales and design flaws led Nokia to announce a revised version, the N-Gage QD, which should be available by June 2004 worldwide.
The Tapwave Zodiac, in addition to being a game console, is also a fully functioning PDA, a portable digital audio player, and a JPEG photo viewer. It also offers Bluetooth capability for networked gaming. Since it does not have the vast resources of its competition, Tapwave has the most difficult task in establishing its platform.
Sony created a stir in May 2003, when it announced it was entering the handheld gaming market with the PSP. Product details have been somewhat scarce from Sony, but the PSP will offer the ability to play digital audio files, and Sony is promising it will play video files as well. With embedded Wi-Fi capability, the PSP will also offer networked gaming. The PSP is scheduled to make its debut in Japan in the fourth quarter of 2004.
Casting a long shadow over the handheld market is Nintendo, the most successful company in the history of handheld games. In the face of new competition, Nintendo is not sitting still. In early 2003, it released the Game Boy Advance SP, a smaller, sleeker version of its popular predecessor. In addition, in the fourth quarter of 2004, it is scheduled to release the Nintendo Dual Screen (DS), a handheld game platform with two TFT-LCD screens to allow two different but simultaneous game perspectives.
The suddenly crowded handheld market should lead to increased shipments for the product category. According to the new In-Stat/MDR report “Emerging Handheld Game Platforms: It’s Not Just Game Boy Anymore,” revenues in this market should increase by over 15% per year through 2008.
Synplicity Inc. introduced its new Synplify DSP software, a premiere solution for implementing DSP designs in FPGAs. With the Synplify® DSP software, users of the widely adopted Simulink design environment from The MathWorks can automatically take designs specified at the algorithm level and generate high-quality, synthesis-ready RTL code. By utilizing unique system-level optimizations, the Synplify DSP software produces circuits that are up to 50 percent faster and 30 percent smaller than solutions created by alternative tools for implementing DSP in hardware.
Implementing DSP algorithms in hardware can result in an order of magnitude performance increase over standard DSP processors and with the growing demand for enhanced DSP performance for applications such as video/image processing, wireless networking, HDTV, set-top boxes and military and aerospace products, the rate of growth for hardware-based DSPs continues to rise.
“DSP designers are increasingly targeting FPGAs for implementation of high-performance DSP designs,” said Ken Karnofsky, marketing director for DSP and communications products at The MathWorks. “Synplicity has delivered sophisticated tools for users to generate high-quality RTL code from Simulink that not only delivers impressive QoR, but leverages the comprehensive DSP simulation and analysis already built into Simulink.”
With this announcement, Synplicity has addressed a major design issue – a simple methodology for the insertion of a DSP core into an FPGA, using the Simulink design environment, using algorithm level data to generate a synthesis-ready RTL code. Continued performance and capability enhancements, can only occur via a combined emphasis on both the hardware and software sides of the design world, if the bridge between that world and the one of semiconductor technology is ever to narrow.
- Jerry Worchel - Senior Analyst
, E-mail:jworchel@reedbusiness.com
Tharas Systems, Inc. announced the Hammer® 100, the industry's most advanced hardware-assisted simulation accelerator for functional verification of complex ASIC and system designs. The Hammer 100 delivers industry-leading compilation speed, faster run-time performance, and an enhanced debug environment that offers ease-of-use and ease-of-adoption comparable to that of software simulators.
The patented Hammer custom-processor architecture compiles Verilog, VHDL or mixed-language designs at 20 to 50 million RTL gate equivalents per hour on a single workstation – the fastest compilation of in the industry. The modular compiler enables design changes without full compile for even faster design preparation time. Design blocks or chips can be compiled separately and linked later to allow for pre-compiled modules (PCM) that can be managed and linked during compile time. Only changed PCM is incrementally compiled and re-linked during source-level engineering change orders. Incremental change can be done to either the design or testbench source.
“Today's designs require engineers to consider a scalable verification platform that can deliver the language compliance and debug productivity of traditional simulation, and the performance of hardware assisted verification. Hammer 100 hits all of these key target requirements," said Rahm Shastry, president & CEO of Tharas Systems. "Hammer 100 delivers an affordable platform with fast design turns and high debug productivity, all in an easy-to-adopt platform."
While most Electronic Design Automation (EDA) companies pursue improving software for enhancing design capability, Tharas has taken a giant step forward in improving design capability, as well as reducing the design cycle, by addressing the hardware aspect of design. With their multiple parallel processing approach, Tharas allows for standard software design packages, which designers are already familiar with, to continue to be used, using hardware to take up the slack, hence, improving all around performance and reliability.
Xilinx Launches New Era Of Digital Design In Aerospace And Defense With Introduction Of QPRO Virtex-II Family
Xilinx, Inc. announced the immediate availability of its QPRO Virtex-II radiation-tolerant reconfigurable Platform FPGA family. Offering densities of up to six million system gates and high performance system features such as high performance embedded block RAM, embedded multipliers, Digital Clock Manager, and integrated I/O termination (XCITE), the QPRO Virtex-II family leads the industry in offering high density, high performance reconfigurable solutions specifically designed for mission-critical applications in aerospace and defense.
Xilinx provides the industry's only line of reconfigurable solutions for these high integrity applications. Used in the "main brain" of the Mars Rover vehicles, the on-board reprogrammability of Xilinx previous-generation QPRO radiation-tolerant FPGAs allowed for design changes and updates right up to launch time, allowing the JPL design team to meet demanding schedules. According to JPL, this same "on the fly" reprogrammability will be used for post-launch reprogramming in its next generation deep space UHF radio on the '05 Mars orbiter. Because Xilinx chips can literally change their personality, designers have the ability to fix hardware problems or download new features from a remote location.
"Reconfigurability plays a key role in addressing three key industry requirements – program re-use, technology insertion and a superior alternative to mask-programmed ASICs and one-time-programmable FPGAs. Both the aerospace and defense communities have embraced Xilinx QPRO technology for a wide range of applications, including mission-critical airborne and space systems," stated Rick Padovani, general manager of the Aerospace and Defense division at Xilinx. "By combining radiation-tolerance with the flexibility and high-performance features of our Virtex-II FPGAs, we're enabling a whole new range of cost effective applications and capabilities for our customers."
Xilinx continues to maintain its leadership position, relative to FPGA-based reconfigurable platform solutions targeted at military and aerospace applications. These two end-use markets will continue to prosper over the next few years, the result of both conflicts here on earth, coupled with the expansion of space exploration. In the longer term, reconfigurable technology will be invaluable in the commercialization of space.
- Jerry Worchel - Senior Analyst
, E-mail:jworchel@reedbusiness.com
Wireline Data Services Spending by Type in the Small Business Market
Given the evolving data needs of small business firms, it is not surprising that budget allocations for various types of services are shifting over time. In contrast to the larger firms, value-added data services make up the largest portion of wireline data services spending in the small business market, with 36% of the total in 2003. This category includes expenditures on broadband services, voice-over-X (VoIP, VoDSL, etc.) services, VPN services, managed services, and other telco-delivered services provided over the wide area data network. Growth in value-added service spending, estimated at roughly 44% for this year, is expected to remain rather high through 2008, in excess of 40% for each year through 2007, before falling to 36% in 2008, with spending reaching $12.9 billion at that time, nearly six times 2003 spending estimates.
Demand for higher-end data services, such as private lines, ATM and Frame Relay, has always been somewhat limited in the small business market. Despite this, due to their price premium over more common data services in this market, the second largest contributor to data services spending in this market is private line services, with spending estimated at roughly 28% of the total in 2003. However, spending on these services is expected to decline at an escalating rate over the coming years, primarily due to pricing pressure and the replacement of DSL over time. By 2008, In-Stat/MDR estimates that private line spending will fall by nearly 13%. Similar trends can be seen in both Frame Relay and ATM spending, though the rates of decline are expected to be even greater.
For more on the categories of Wireline Data Services spending in the small business market, check out In-Stat/MDR’s Dynamic Data File report, “The Data Nation: Wireline Data Services Spending and Broadband Usage in the US Business Market, Part Three: Small Businesses (5 to 99 Employees) – Advance Report”, report number IN030960BB, available online at: http://www.instat.com/catalog/ecatalogue.asp?id=205#IN030960BB
- Colin Nelson - Research Analyst
, E-mail:cnelson@reedbusiness.com
