AMCC aims for wireless apps with low-power Titan chip family

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 5/21/2007

Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC) announced today at the In-Stat Microprocessor forum in San Jose, Calif. details of its next generation "Titan" processor family. The dual-core Titan, which is software compatible with AMCC's PowerPC 440 family, offers over 8000 Dhrystone 2.1 MIPS at 2GHz while dissipating 2.5 Watts per core, AMCC said.

AMCC said it selected Intrinsity Fast14 technology as the basic circuit technology used in the core. According to the company, this enables the multi-core Titan to offer leading-edge performance and low power in a commodity 90-nm CMOS process, while avoiding the cost and complexity of what it called "more exotic technologies" like silicon on insulator.

The Titan core from AMCC will be used in a number of products designed to address a wide range of applications that includes wireless communications for WiFi, cellular, and WiMax networks, IP and Ethernet-based data networks, multi-function printing and imaging products and industrial and defense electronics markets, the company said. For low-end embedded applications, chip developers could use the single-core version of Titan, while mid- to high-performance applications could employ a dual- or quad-core design, AMCC said.