NXP Licenses CEVA's DSP Core for its Ultra Low-cost Cellular Solutions

(Business News & Technology News, 10 Oct 2007)

NXP has licensed the CEVA-Teak DSP core for its ultra-low-cost cellular solutions. NXP is the latest world-class semiconductor company to announce the adoption of CEVA DSP technology as the DSP architecture of choice for handset designs, joining a high-profile customer list, including Broadcom, Chipnuts, EoNex, Infineon, InterDigital, Renesas, ROHM, Sharp, Spreadtrum and VIA, as well as yet-to-be-announced major European and Taiwanese chipset suppliers.

Quantifying CEVA's strong momentum in DSP, research firm Gartner reports CEVA's share of the worldwide market in 2006 at 53 percent based on design IP revenue.

Baseband and multimedia solutions utilizing open DSP architectures, such as CEVA-TeakLite, CEVA-Teak and CEVA-X, are increasingly favored by handset manufacturers. Today, CEVA's DSP cores are shipping in wireless solutions deployed by many of the world's leading handset manufacturers, including Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG Electronics, Sharp, Lenovo, Panasonic, Palm, Arima, BenQ, ZTE, TCL, Amoi, Haier, Hisense, Ningbo Bird and CECT.

Gideon Wertheizer, CEO of CEVA, stated: "Driven by the handset manufacturers, the wireless industry is undergoing a fundamental shift away from proprietary DSP architectures toward open DSP architectures like the CEVA DSP cores. This enables the handset manufacturers to reduce their chipset costs by sourcing their chips from multiple vendors using a common DSP architecture. By providing industry-leading DSP technology and a comprehensive roadmap to enable the baseband suppliers to develop solutions for ultra-low-cost handsets, multimode 2.5G/3G, as well as 4G baseband solutions, CEVA is ideally situated to build on its strong position within the handset industry."

According to research firm Forward Concepts, the mobile handset market is set to grow to 1.5 billion units by 2011, up from 1.03 billion units in 2006. To address this growing market, CEVA offers a comprehensive portfolio of DSPs tailored for every baseband application ranging from ultra-low-power DSP cores to high-performance Quad MAC and 32bit DSPs. In addition, CEVA offers a range of software IP that can run on the integrated baseband CEVA DSP, thereby allowing the baseband suppliers to create compelling, differentiated baseband/application processor solutions with multimedia, Bluetooth or audio features for the handset manufacturers.

Click here for more information on CEVA's DSP cores