ICube Launches Harmony Unified Processor Technology

16 October 2012

ICube Technology Holdings, a China-based design company with focus on self-developed semiconductor processing chips and core architecture for China’s mobile device market, has unveiled its Harmony Unified Processor Technology.

The Harmony Unified Processor Technology integrates two different processor types: a central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processing unit (GPU), into one unified core. This technology consists of the Multi-Thread Virtual Pipeline parallel computing core, an independent instruction set architecture (ISA), an optimizing compiler and the Agile Switch dynamic load balancer. It brings the most cost efficient and power efficient performance to the mobile computing and mobile communication markets, according to a statement released by the company.

The finished silicon for the Harmony Unified Processor Technology has been produced and is ready for packaging, the statement said. The resulting chip product is targeted to tap into the booming Android based tablet computer market. Volume shipping is expected by the end of this year.

“Existing processors in the market today are all based on decades-old designs, which limit their readiness to take advantage of the latest advancements in semiconductor technology,” the statement said. The Harmony Unified Processor Technology sets a new industry standard of performance by processing up to four threads (tasks) in each core. This contrasts with existing cores in the market that are limited to a single thread per core. This additional parallelism will bring significant performance benefits to mobile computing, thereby providing a desirable solution to Android-based tablet computer manufacturers.

“Developing our own intellectual property (IP) from the ground up has been a key differentiation of ICube from other technology companies in China,” said Simon Moy, chief technical officer of ICube. “This provides us with much greater areas for innovation, enables us to leverage the latest semiconductor trends and lowers the cost of our system-on-a-chip (SOC) products relative to other chipmakers.”

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