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|  | LSI LOGIC AND WIND RIVER WIN BIG | | | By working together, the two companies have 28 design wins-and counting. | | | By Gabriel Allan | |
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 Building embedded systems is a highly complex operation, and the design chains that support such work can be similarly complex. Chipmaker LSI Logic and its real-time operating system (RTOS) supplier Wind River Systems have just such a design chain relationship, and they have achieved notable success in optimizing the links not only with each other but also with their mutual customers.
The two companies help sell each other's products, but it's more than a joint marketing or value-added reseller (VAR) agreement. They share information about design strategies, but it's more than a co-development effort. And they help customers design consumer devices, but they aren't exactly consultants. LSI Logic of Milpitas, Calif., and Wind River of Alameda, Calif., work together in a complicated, symbiotic relationship that significantly impacts the design chains of which they are a part.
 Among the more significant aspects of this relationship is the agreement Wind River and LSI Logic signed this year that will further extend their technology partnership. Wind River's software and development tools will be more tightly integrated with LSI's interactive digital products. As a result, LSI will be able to provide OEMs a more complete solution, one that combines hardware and development software. For example, LSI earlier this year released the DiMeNsion 8600 DVD processor, which is bundled with Wind River's operating system and development tools. Based on its DoMiNo architecture, LSI says the processor is the first single-chip DVD recorder system.
System-on-a-Chip Supplier of Choice
LSI customers are enthusiastic. "The high level of integration and compelling set of features will help bring DVD recorders to the mass market," says Shingo Kawata, associate director of the home AV network business unit of Victor Company of Japan Corp. (JVC). The company is developing systems that use the DiMeNsion chip, and, notes Kawata, "LSI Logic's DoMiNo architecture represents a new level of performance for consumer digital entertainment solutions."
Other LSI Logic/Wind River customers include Sony, Samsung and Umax. At Sony, LSI chips are used to control I/O in its wildly successful PlayStation 2 product. Sony says LSI is the "SoC supplier of choice."
As a member of Wind River's VAR program, LSI Logic also provides bundled chip and software solutions for the voice and data communications market. For example, LSI Logic bundles Wind River's Tornado integrated development environment (IDE) for managed switches software with its own microprocessor for Ethernet switching applications, says David Fraser, vice president and general manager of Wind River's networks business unit. The bundled chip and software gives developers a leg up on building their product. They get not only one-stop shopping but assured compatibility, which makes for a powerful combination.
Indeed, the relationship between Wind River and LSI is successful. "The metrics really include both the number of design wins and the overall revenue of business," says Sy Choudhury, director of market development for Wind River's digital consumer group. In conjunction with LSI, "we have approximately 28 separate product lines from different
companies in some stage of product lifecycle," he says. Although Choudhury declined to disclose the financials, it has been a multimillion-dollar business.
What's in it for the Customer?
For those developers "downstream" of chip designer LSI Logic and software tool provider Wind River, the benefits of the companies' close partnership are several. Wind River says developers get a complete hardware and software solution early in the product lifecycle. That means they can prototype early and develop applications in parallel with the devices themselves. Plus, coordinated product roadmaps preserve current and future investments in technology.
"A DVD processor integrates a number of functions, including CPU, MPEG decoder, audio DSP and graphics engine," explains Timothy Vehling, senior director of marketing for LSI's home media products group. "The software complexity of this SoC system increases dramatically when all the software for these functions is combined into one. Multiple threads of signal processing software now share the same processor. The RTOS provides the environment to keep the functions separate, even when they share the same CPU."
 The ability of Wind River and LSI Logic to work in close harmony is essential in today's environment, where development time and resources are precious, says Vehling. Because of today's tiny chip sizes, "a mask costs about a million dollars," notes Max Baron, principal analyst for In-Stat/MDR in Scottsdale, Ariz. "To find bugs [before the first mask is made], you want the software development to go on in parallel with the work on the hardware. Since [systems designers] don't have the chip in hand, they work with emulations in software." Many customers use these emulators, and because of the tight links between LSI and Wind River, they are able to do the emulations quickly and easily.
Speed and low cost are of the essence in the DVD recorder market. JVC is gearing up to compete in what In-Stat/MDR is predicting to be a two-million-unit DVD recorder business by next year (see chart on page 26). Single-chip processors will allow for what the company calls an "affordable solution." Although JVC didn't specify a price, it has only been in the last year that such devices broke through the $1,000 pricing ceiling in the consumer market.
"Wind River brings a lot to the table as a leader in embedded software platform technologies," says Paul Zorfass, senior analyst with IDC/FTI in Weston, Mass. "It has the integrated development environment, partners, and pieces of other stacks and software/middleware. These all add some degree of completeness, which makes the OEM more comfortable," he adds.
Says LSI's Vehling, "the bundling of our products with Wind River software provides our customers with a software development environment that helps them focus on high-level application development... which ultimately translates into increased productivity and faster time-to-market."
Recommended Links
The hardware and software combination from LSI and Wind River provides the necessary design infrastructure their customers need. "The fact is," says IDC's Zorfass, "semiconductor vendors have a very simple point of view—'Nothing shall stand in the way of my customer buying my product.'" Companies like LSI want not only the operating system but also the development tools available as early as possible in the design cycle. "If Wind River were only an OS company, it wouldn't be in the [strong market] position it is now," he says.
 Wind River's combination of tools and support services enables LSI Logic to offer a more complete solution to the market, which translates into more design wins. "There is recognition that software is very high on the list of getting to market," Zorfass adds. "If you don't have software tools and integrated operating systems for the customers, OEMs will be late," and that will cost them sales.
Today, most companies appreciate the link between LSI and Wind River. "Since chips are so complex, people like to use IP," says In-Stat/MDR's Baron. "That way, very large portions of the chips have already been designed. It saves them many man years...and it saves them money."
Because LSI and Wind River are involved so early—and so intimately—in the design chain, the companies can have a lot of influence over how the end product is designed. This organizational setup allows messages to flow between LSI, Wind River and their customers.
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| "We don't have to worry about supporting tools—Wind River does it for us." Timothy Vehling, LSI Logic |
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Wind River will even help design OEM-specific software around LSI chips. In the set-top box market, for instance, Wind River's Design Services unit designed and prototyped a set-top box for a key Japanese set-top receiver customer. The software for the digital, satellite-TV signal system was designed around an LSI processor with the customer's on-site engineering staff. "Our digital consumer electronics customers require accelerated development cycles to deliver the latest features at a price that is appealing to consumers," says Joerg Bertholdt, director of marketing for Wind River's digital consumer group.
The Centipede's Problem
Because so many companies are involved with Wind River and LSI Logic, it's reasonable to expect coordination problems. That hasn't proved to be the case. "We hold quarterly engineering meetings as well as asynchronously scheduling other training," explains Choudhury. "For example, their field training is done on a yearly basis, and we are usually asked to participate to talk about our technology roadmap."
Not only do LSI's people train with the Wind River people, so too do the companies' joint customers. "All our customers, engineers and support teams are in the same development environment, everybody's on the same platform worldwide. Every customer has the same environment. We don't have to worry about supporting tools—Wind River does it for us," says LSI's Vehling. "We don't have to support our own homegrown tools."
By providing a single platform worldwide, LSI and Wind River avoid integration and interoperability problems. It is an issue of standardization, one that reduces cost and hassles.
Wind River is "very well set up to get people started," adds Hans van den Crommenacker, principal engineer for LSI. "When the customer reaches the level of maturity, CPU usage becomes very specific." In most cases, Wind River is the contact for training and support. "In China, Korea and Taiwan, because we have field engineering offices there, we can help work out issues" on the spot, he says.
There's other third-party activity as well, such as a Java virtual machine and "too many network products to mention," he adds. With Wind River as a widespread and industry-accepted operating system, a lot of third-party software is available. "An engineer is a creature of habit; solve a problem one way, and you'll want to solve it that way again," van den Crommenacker explains. "But in training they're exposed to new things."
Wind River and LSI Logic are willing to optimize their design chains with almost anyone. The companies have even been known to give their tools to consultants doing competitive benchmarking. Explains LSI's Choudhury, "if I work for Toyota, I can still go buy a Honda to see how it works."
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
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Gabriel Allan writes for such publications as Information Week, Electronic Business and Network World. Reach him at gallan@designchain.com. Additional reporting provided by Richard A. Quinnell. |
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