The electronics industry has seen four major generations of computer technology to date: the ENIAC era, the mainframe, the minicomputer and the microprocessor, each characterized by the capabilities of its underlying technology. The microprocessor era – characterized by single-chip processors – has reached the point of diminishing returns and is now coming to an end.

Today, a new generation of computer technology is emerging called System-on-a-Chip.

SoC, and its subset MultiCore, represents the next major generation of electronic system integration.  Enabled by deep submicron technology, this new semiconductor building block era allows system designers to achieve orders of magnitude improvements in cost, size, weight and power.  Just as with the adaptation of the microprocessor over LSI building blocks, all microprocessor based systems in all industries will ultimately be transformed and fabricated with SoC technology.

Like No Other Generation Before

But hardware is only one side of the story.  A system’s behavior – and value – is predominantly contained in its software.  Millions of software applications currently run on microprocessor-based systems.  The high-end market is supported by an extensive software base developed over decades, running complex and, oftentimes, critical applications. This enormous software base represents billions of dollars in direct development costs and immeasurable value in tested reliability, refinement and certification.