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For Immediate Release
PIVOTAL TECHNOLOGIES AND UMC GROUP ALIGN TO ADDRESS
COMMUNICATIONS AND MULTIMEDIA SOC DESIGNS
Broad Portfolio of Analog and Mixed-Signal Cores to Target Deep Submicron
SOC Requirements
PASADENA, Calif. and SUNNYVALE,
Calif., November 29, 1999-Pivotal Technologies, a leading provider
of analog and mixed-signal sub-systems for SOC applications, and
UMC Group, the renowned semiconductor foundry, today announced a
multi-year agreement to prove, supply and support a broad range
of Pivotal's Fulcrum![]()
analog and mixed-signal on-chip components, essential for deep sub-micron,
system-on-chip (SOC) designs. With this agreement, SOC developers
will have broader access to proven components that target their
deep submicron process requirements in communications and multi-media
markets. The components will be made available for UMC Group's
0.25 and 0.18 micron processes, as well as 0.15 micron processes
in the future. Several important elements for rapidly expanding
communications and multi-media markets will be thoroughly tested
on the various processes and provided in an SOC-integration-ready
format. Thus, developers can reduce their development risks
and time-to-market cycles as they can tap these on-chip components
from Pivotal, rather than build their own.
"The complexity of SOC design is still considered a high-risk undertaking,"
said K.C. Murphy, president and CEO of Pivotal Technologies.
"Anything we can do to lower risk allows our customers to have a
higher confidence in their SOC designs. By having UMC Group
as our Premier Technology Development Partner, we can assure our
mutual customers that Pivotal's Fulcrum![]() IP components have been
validated on an industry-leading deep submicron foundry process.
This partnership eliminates the promise of a design and replaces
it with the demonstration of a product."
"Developers of SOCs require several categories of IP: foundation
libraries, embedded memories, analog and mixed-signal cores and
microprocessor components, and these all need to be interoperable,"
noted Dr. Jim Ballingall vice president of worldwide marketing at
UMC Group. "For the past year, the focus of our Gold IP program
has been pre-proving and coding cores to their maturity in our process
technologies. Now the focus is shifting to interoperability
of the cores as we move into Phase 2 of the program. Pivotal
is key to this phase as they offer a complete and rich set of analog
cores that they developed internally. Furthermore, Pivotal
is cooperating with our other Gold IP partners to assemble this
basic set into more complex application-specific IP cores and platforms.
As analog and mixed-signal cores are so difficult and time consuming
to make, those companies that purchase these components from Pivotal,
our Premier Technology Development Partner for such technology,
will save time and valuable engineering resources. Accordingly,
we are very enthusiastic about this partnership with Pivotal as
now our customers, particularly those that are seeking to develop
designs on our 0.18 micron process, will have broader access to
the components they require."
Murphy stated, "Pivotal is at the forefront of providing not only
world-class technology, but also solid real-world delivery.
Our flows and testability features on the analog/mixed-signal side
are second to none, particularly now as we have partnered with UMC
Group."
Kawasaki LSI is a customer of Pivotal Technologies and UMC Group.
Mano Vafai, vice president of system on a chip products at Kawasaki
LSI U.S.A. noted, "Kawasaki LSI is aggressively expanding its SOC
product portfolios to meet the cost/performance requirements of
its expanding global customer base. In doing so, Kawasaki LSI will
take advantage of analog IP solutions developed by companies such
as Pivotal Technologies that target the mainstream CMOS process
developed by UMC Group."
Hisaya Keida, research and development manager for product development
and design at Kawasaki LSI in Japan added, "We have found Pivotal
Technologies to be different from ordinary providers of analog IP
in numerous ways. Pivotal provides rich line-ups, is very
aggressive in developing product and always verifies silicon performance.
With analog functions, you cannot be confident until you see working
silicon. In particular, we have been very impressed with the
work of Pivotal Technologies' test lab."
Pivotal Technologies also recently received a $10-million Series
B round of financing led by the investment arm of Goldman Sachs.
This second round of financing brings Pivotal a total of $14-million
in financing to date. This most recent investment will be
used to expand the engineering resources to meet the company's present
sales demands worldwide.
The joint portfolio includes analog and mixed-signal SOC components
from Pivotal's Fulcrum line of high-performance A/D converters,
D/A converters, and PLLs, which are available now. Each of
the on-chip products has been designed to address specific segments
of today's high-growth communications and multi-media markets.
The components, which require only standard CMOS logic processes,
will be fully qualified in UMC Group processes prior to delivery.
Pivotal is also providing to customers the elements needed for successful
integration and final testing to ensure cost-effective, robust SOC
solutions.
About Pivotal Technologies
Pivotal Technologies Corp. (www.pivotaltech.com), founded in
1997, is a leading supplier of System-On-a-Chip (SOC) subsystems
for multimedia, communications and networking applications.
One of the first companies to enable highly integrated silicon for
digital data transmission, Pivotal has proven to be instrumental
in helping semiconductor companies get SOC products to market quickly.
Pivotal leverages world class analog, RF and dedicated digital signal
processing (DSP) technologies and global semiconductor manufacturing
partnerships to develop and prove both mixed-signal components,
known as the FulcrumTM product line, and complete physical interfaces
for applications such as Digital Video, Ethernet and Bluetooth.
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