Press Release
Sandbridge Announces Certified BDTI Communications Benchmark (OFDM)™ Results for its Sandblaster® SB3500
Tarrytown, NY, January, 20th, 2009 – Sandbridge Technologies, a leading fabless semiconductor company developing multimode baseband/multimedia processors for low-cost advanced mobile devices, announced today that Berkeley Design Technology, Inc. (BDTI) has certified results for the Sandblaster® SB3500 on its BDTI Communications Benchmark (OFDM)™. The SB3500 achieved the lowest cost per channel of all processors certified by BDTI using this benchmark. The benchmark results are available at http://www.BDTI.com/bdtimark/ofdm.htm.
The BDTI Communications Benchmark (OFDM)™ is an application-oriented benchmark based on an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) receiver. BDTI introduced the benchmark as a means to evaluate and compare the performance of a diverse range of complex processing architectures. This benchmark enables the performance evaluation of processors and other implementation technologies on a complex, demanding workload.
Through its rigorous certification process, BDTI has validated that the SB3500 provides remarkably high performance at the lowest cost per channel of any benchmarked processor. The Sandblaster SB3500 running at 500 MHz demonstrated six channels of processing capability at under $5.00 per channel. Sandbridge has previously demonstrated implementations of WiFi, WiMAX, GPS, GSM/GPRS, WCDMA, LTE and 1xEVDO on the SB3500. The BDTI benchmark results further validate the flexibility and scalability of the Sandblaster design.
In the January issue of its InsideDSP newsletter, BDTI stated: Compared to a traditional DSP processor family, Texas Instruments' 'C64x+, the Sandbridge chip is both more powerful and much cheaper. At 1.2 GHz, the high-performance 'C6455 can only handle 1-2 channels of BDTI’s benchmark. And the cost-per-channel result of the cost-optimized ’C6410 is an order of magnitude higher than that of the SB3500.”
The SB3500 delivered 240 Mbps of raw processing capability on the simplified receiver baseband in BDTI’s benchmark, with plenty of headroom remaining for other applications. Comparatively, LTE and Wave2 WiMAX, two emerging OFDM applications, are targeting data-rates of 100 Mbps and 15 Mbps, respectively.
“It is remarkable that a processor designed for handset applications can perform so superbly compared with chips targeting infrastructure applications.” said Dr. John Glossner, Sandbridge EVP & CTO. “Coupled with ultra low power dissipation, the SB3500’s performance enables scalability unachievable in previous designs. Products from high performance handsets to femtocells powered over Ethernet using the same easy-to-program platform are now realizable.”
The Sandblaster SB3500 contains three SBX 4-way multithreaded, 16-wide vector DSP. Typical power dissipation of a 500MHz SBX core is 100mW. A unique feature of the design is its arbitrarily interruptible capability enabling multimode applications. A fully integrated ARM core and set of peripherals enabling smart phone applications are provided.
In addition to the processor chip, Sandbridge provides a complete Integrated Design Environment (IDE) that includes:
- A high level C language eclipse-based development environment
- A highly optimizing parallelizing compiler including vectorization and automatic multithreading.
- A real-time operating system conforming to the open POSIX pthreads API
- A flash compiled simulator offering up to 200 Million Instructions per Second simulation
speed for
unprecedented ease of development and debugging
For OEM’s and ISV’s developing independent baseband modem solutions, this represents a unique opportunity to utilize Sandbridge’s SB3500 chip with integrated SBX cores for multiple products, while realizing a time to market advantage over traditional hardware-based designs. The SB3500® series processor at 500 MHz per core is available for $25.00 in 1000 unit quantities.
About Sandbridge Technologies
With offices in Tarrytown, NY, and Lowell, MA, Sandbridge Technologies is a fabless semiconductor company with a mission to deliver ubiquitous wireless connectivity for the consumer market at the highest-integration level and lowest-cost. Sandbridge has developed a radically innovative baseband engine that is a flexible alternative to dedicated hardware for next generation, multi-mode handsets and reduces their cost, complexity and time-to-market.
Sandbridge’s core technology, Sandblaster®, is a revolutionary multi-threaded DSP architecture with the capacity to perform flexible baseband processing for all wireless protocols up to and including LTE and WiMAX—as well as all multimedia functions—without compromising battery consumption.
Sandbridge’s unique solution will kick-start a prolific new era of innovation benefiting the entire mobile ecosystem by delivering unprecedented compute performance that will accelerate the creation and distribution of truly pioneering mobile features and applications.
Sandbridge Technologies is privately held with investments from top tier venture funds and strategic partners.
SANDBRIDGE, Sandblaster and SB3500 are registered trademarks of Sandbridge Technologies, Inc.
Reader Contact Information
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Fax:
+1.914.287-8501
59 Composite Way, Suite 400, Lowell, MA 01851, USA Phone: +1978.703.2223,
Fax:
+1978.703.2201, info@sandbridgetech.com, www.sandbridgetech.com, bizdev@sandbridgetech.com
Contact Person:
Jeff Schwartz
E-mail: jjs@sandbridgetech.com
Phone: +1 650.323.1153
M.b: +1 650.776.7007