Technical News

The Telecommunications Industry (TIA) has formally published IS-2000, "cdma2000 Rev.A," and ANSI/TIA/EIA-136 Series, Rev. B, "TDMA 3G Wireless," also known as "Universal Wireless Communications 136 (UWC-136)." Both documents support the IMT-2000 specification.

Approval of the IMT-2000 Recommendation at the ITU-R Radiocommunication Assembly, and support at the detail level by other standards development organizations working on 3G global standards will allow IMT-2000 services to begin commercial operation in 2001.

Telecommunications Industry Association, http://www.csdmag.com/scripts/redirect.pl/banner=tia?http://www.tiaonline.org

The ITU has approved a new standard specifying the transport of Internet protocol (IP) structured signals over public networks based on ATM technology. The ITU-T Recommendation Y.1310 (Transport of IP over ATM in Public Networks) is the second major IP-related standard issued by ITU-T Study Group 13. Last year, the study group completed Recommendation Y.1540, which defines performance parameters for quantifying IP network performance. This will be followed by Y.1541 which will define quality of service classes and performance objectives that should be achieved by IP network providers in assuring the end-to-end performance of IP communications.

International Telecommunication Union, http://www.csdmag.com/scripts/redirect.pl/banner=itu?http://www.itu.int.

Members of EEMBC, the embedded processor benchmark consortium, revealed ECL-certified benchmark scores for 12 processors and the associated compilers. The scores are aimed at helping designers of telecommunication and networking products better evaluate and select the right processor and compiler for their applications. Companies participating in the initial benchmarking effort included AMD, Green Hills Software, IDT, Infineon, Mitsubishi Electric Corp., National Semiconductor, NEC Electronics, STMicroelectronics, and Toshiba.

All the first-release scores are EEMBC out-of-the-box, or unoptimized, benchmark scores. An out-of-the-box score means that anyone running the benchmarks must use the unmodified source code, as delivered by EEMBC. Certified benchmarking results are posted on the EEMBC Web site at http://www.csdmag.com/scripts/redirect.pl/banner=eembc?http://www.eebmc.org/benchmark.

LSI Logic Corp. introduced its ZSP Software Developer's Forum, designed to expand the product offerings and leverage the capabilities of LSI Logic's ZSP DSP core through collaboration with third-party software vendors. The company also took the opportunity to formally recognize the program's first three charter members, VoCAL Technologies Ltd., Hellosoft, and White Eagle Systems Technology, all of which offer broad communication software libraries.

VoCAL Technologies Ltd., Hellosoft, and White Eagle Technology were formally admitted as charter members of the Forum based on their contributions to ZSP-based design, including communication software libraries that assist V.90 protocol modems, voice-over-IP (VoIP) and wireless applications, and fax operations. For more information about how to enroll in the Software Developer's Forum e-mail mailto:sbright@lsil.com.

LSI Logic Corp., http://www.csdmag.com/scripts/redirect.pl/banner=lsilogic?http://www.lsilogic.com.

The Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI) Steering group has finalized version 1.0 of the SystemC modeling platform and, together with a beta version 1.1 of SystemC, it will be available soon for download at http://www.csdmag.com/scripts/redirect.pl?banner=systemc?http://www.systemc.org.

SystemC version 1.0 consists of all of the enhancements made in version 0.91 (including support for modules, ports, new data types, more extensive run-time error reporting, and a simplified syntax) plus support for fixed-point data types, thanks to a combined contribution from Synopsys, Inc. and Frontier Design. Version 1.0 offers a set of foundational data.