SUNNYVALE, Ca. - April 25, 2005 - The PISMO Advisory Council, the industry's first organization focused on streamlining system-level memory validation and test, today announced that semiconductor providers Analog Devices, Broadcom, Cypress, M Systems and Micron Technology, Inc. have joined the organization. The group, which now includes 11 member companies, is defining a single, board-level interface standard that allows designers to use a variety of memory devices on development platforms from multiple vendors in a plug-and-play fashion.
"The addition of these five new members validates our belief that the industry must work together to reduce the complexities of verifying the compatibility of memory and logic," said Fasil Bekele, chairman of the PISMO Advisory Council. "By developing a standard interface, we free designers to focus on bringing value-added features to their products, rather than having to spend time and resources developing proprietary boards for verifying memory and logic compatibility."
Significant growth in the wireless and embedded markets has given rise to hundreds of new processors, chipsets and memory types that must be tested for compatibility. Without a standard interface, system designers must develop and use a variety of device-specific development boards to ensure compatibility. The PISMO standard is intended to address this challenge.
Members of the PISMO Advisory Council provide input and are allowed to vote on enhancements and changes to the standard. Members are also given early access to PISMO specifications and design collateral. Membership is open to any company involved in semiconductor or systems development. Meetings are held quarterly, with the next meeting planned for June 15, 2005.
New Members Express Their Support for the PISMO Standard
"As a leading supplier of chipsets for the rapidly evolving wireless handset market, Analog Devices sees a need for simplifying memory validation and testing," said Mark Martin, product line director of RF and wireless systems for Analog Devices, Inc., a world-leading semiconductor company specializing in high-performance analog, mixed-signal, and digital-signal processing (DSP) integrated circuits (ICs). "By joining the council, we look forward to working with others towards that objective and thereby make our customers' design challenges easier."
"The proliferation of various memory products targeted for handheld communication systems creates connectivity challenges for Broadcom and our customers," said Nelson Sollenberger, senior director of engineering for Broadcom's Mobile Communications Products. "As a global leader in wired and wireless broadband communications semiconductors, we support a standardized methodology to validate the interface between our industry-leading baseband processors and these memory products."
"We are looking forward to working with the PISMO Advisory Council to define the industry's first standard targeted at reducing memory test complexity," said Christos Mimikopoulos, senior product marketing manager at Cypress. "As a provider of specialty memories to some of the world's leading data communications companies, we believe that progress in this area will enable our customers to innovate more rapidly and deliver feature-rich products to market in less time."
"With a variety of Flash-based memory solutions widely used in many market segments, M Systems sees an essential need for standards and industry cooperation," said Zack Weisfeld, general manager of M Systems America. "We believe that a standardized approach to memory test and validation will help customers to more easily overcome design challenges, allowing them to more quickly choose the right memory device for their needs and enjoy a faster time to market."
"Through participation in standards bodies, Micron plays a strategic role in ensuring the compatibility of next-generation memory technologies in our customers' platforms," said Achim Hill, Micron's senior director of marketing for mobile memory. "Enabling our customers with system design and development support is a key focus, and we see tremendous value in reducing the cost and complexity of system-level design. We look forward to working with other leaders in the semiconductor industry to develop and deliver PISMO standard-compliant products."
PISMO Advisory Council Status
The council has already released the first version of the specification, defining a standard interface for devices on the static RAM (SRAM) bus. It also plans to deliver an enhanced version of the specification later this year that will extend its support for devices on other memory buses, such as synchronous DRAM (SDRAM); DDR Flash and RAM; NAND and SPI.
About the PISMO Advisory Council
The PISMO Advisory Council, spearheaded by Spansion and ARM, is the industry's first organization focused on streamlining system-level memory test and validation. The PISMO interface standard defines mechanical and electrical specifications for small form-factor memory modules. The PISMO(tm) modules are stackable and supported by tools that provide easy access to signals for performing in-depth analysis. These features and more make PISMO memory modules ideal for validating and prototyping combinations of memory devices with a variety of host controllers.
PISMO Advisory Council member companies include ARM, Analog Devices, Broadcom, Cypress, M Systems, Micron, NanoAmp Solutions, SMedia, Spansion, Spreadtrum and Toshiba. For more information on PISMO products and membership, please visit the PISMO Advisory Council Web site at http://www.pismoworld.org.
