Andes, Solid State System sign cooperation agreement to develop next-generation USB 3.0 products

Josephine Lien, Taipei; Steve Shen, 20 August 2012

Taiwan-based processor core IP vendor Andes Technology has signed a cooperation agreement with NAND flash controller IC design house Solid State System (3S), through which 3S will develop next generation USB 3.0 products using AndesCore N903-S embedded CPU core IP, according to the companies.

The adoption of Andes Core N903-S CPU core will help upgrade computing performance as well as reduce power consumption and memory usage in USB 3.0 and other high-density flash memory storage devices, claimed the companies.

N903-S is a synthesizable softcore of general purpose 32-bit embedded processors, which can reach a clock frequency of over 200MHz built on a 0.13-micron process or 300MHz on a 90nm process, Andes noted.

Andes major shareholders include MediaTek (19%), Faraday Technology (12%), Wintek (8%), United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) (6%) and Taiwan government's National Development Fund (25%).

3S focuses on the production of USB audio controllers, flash disk controllers, SD controllers and FDM/SSD controllers, with memory module vendor Kingston Technology being one of the major shareholders.