Together with customers, partners and distributors, hyperstone presented up-to-the-minute developments from the hyperstone microprocessor world. Visitors were able to find out about the new hyperstone roadmap and witness the latest applications, software and services offered by the growing hyperstone community. The conference also premiered Ferrotec’s MailPad, a new mobile internet-access terminal based on hyperstone’s E1-32 microprocessor.
hyperstone - the conference ’97
1st hyperstone product conference and exhibition
Exhibitors, speakers, guests and visitors from Europe, Asia, and the US contributed to make this event a major highlight of the 1997 hyperstone microprocessor year.
Conference Highlights
The conference kicked off with speakers from hyperstone giving an overview of the past, present and future of hyperstone’s technology together with an outline of the company’s vision for the future.
Hyperstone’s chairman Ilse Müller opened the conference with a tour d’horizon followed by Dr. Matthias Steck presenting the company’s marketing strategy and product portfolio. It was then the turn of hyperstone’s Dr. Michael Dolle to introduce the new E1-32X device and to unveil hyperstone’s roadmap. Sharam Shirazi, president of hyperstone electronics USA, Inc., then proceeded to report on hyperstone’s confident advance in the US, and Silicon Valley in particular.
The spotlight then moved to hyperstone’s customers and partners who spoke to the audience about their products and their reasons for choosing hyperstone.
Peter Yeo (LG Semicon Germany), Bill Lin (Solomon Technologies, Taiwan), Francesco Aliverti-Piuri (Etnoteam, Italy), David Ferrie (Ferrotec, Ireland), and Andreas Steinkopf (Hypercope, Germany) presented their hyperstone-related product portfolio and unveiled their future plans with hyperstone CPUs.
Exhibition Highlights
The exhibition hosted a variety of products based on the hyperstone microprocessors, development software and application software.
Visitors were able to witness a demonstration of Ferrotec’s MailPad and obtain information on LG Semicon’s product range. Visual Tools presented its JPEG Library together with their new product line for the video control market. MAKU, also active in the video control sector, exhibited an exceptionally powerful, compact video control unit. The German company REINER displayed a scanner for check-reading. Visitors could also see the various ISDN cards from Hypercope in action as well as the Ethernet-to-ATM Switch from Schneider & Koch. I&T Com disclosed first details of a CATV Modem. Furthermore, Trinamic together with MIKO DATA had products on show.
A number of companies demonstrated their software and services: The University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg exhibited a hyperstone simulator, ARS presented a TCP/IP protocol stack for the hyperstone, Eonic Systems their Virtuoso Operating System, Etnoteam their EOS development platform and S&P Media profiled their CASE tools. Bürmann u. Schweser gave an overview of their protocol modules for the hyperstone and presented their plans to work on JAVA.
Conference chairman, Dr. Manfred Schlett, expressed his delight at the huge success of the event and the positive response drawn from participants: ‘We are still far from being a household name, but this event shows that our community is steadily growing and that we have been successful in establishing global co-operations and partnerships.’
E1-32X Device Samples
Good news for all customers. Samples of the new hyperstone E1-32X device will be available this quarter. As with the previous E1-32 versions, hyperstone will also offer a 100-pin E1-16X device. The E1-32X will run at higher clock frequencies while providing reduced power consumption. With up to 700 MIPS/Watt the new E1-32X device is at the forefront of the 32-bit embedded domain. The E1-32X also offers
additional EDO DRAM and extended SRAM support
increased boot flexibility
sleep and clock-off mode
integrated PLL (1:4)
double the amount of single-cycle on-chip RAM
integrated wait functionality
enhanced Harvard features
The E1-32X is fully compatible to previous versions. Contact hyperstone or see www.hyperstone-electronics.com for a full list of features.
Key Market DSC
Hyperstone intends to further consolidate its favorable position in the Digital Still Camera (DSC) market, a market in which the company achieved considerable success during 1997. Two major concerns have chosen the hyperstone E1-16 for use in new DSC products. This will also incorporate the utilization of Visual Tools’ JPEG library which has been optimized for the E1-32/E1-16 processor line. Hyperstone plans together with partners to implement a DSC development kit. This will be an additional asset in strengthening the company’s position in the DSC area and will also influence the future roadmap of the hyperstone CPU/DSP processor line.
Its integrated RISC/DSP capabilities make the E1-32/E1-16 processor line particularly suitable for DSC products. The microcontroller functionality enables the E1-32 to handle the entire camera control, while its DSP functionality means the E1-32 also has sufficient horsepower to run image (de)compression programs.
It is anticipated that hyperstone’s advance in this area will enable the company to fulfill one of its key objectives in the future, namely to become one of the major camera processor suppliers worldwide.
Microprocessor Forum 97
Hyperstone was invited to speak at 1997’s Microprocessor Forum for the first time. Hyperstone’s Senior Manager Dr. Manfred Schlett presented the new E1-32X device to an audience of 1200 people from the microprocessor field, with the new processor drawing a positive response from both audience and technical press.
Jim Turley from the reputed Microprocessor Report wrote in the Dec 8, 1997 issue: ‘The company’s schtick, mixing processors and DSP, is more in demand than ever before. Siemens, Motorola, and other vendors are following Hyperstone’s lead, entering the market with similar products.’
Events in 1997
1997 was a particularly successful year for hyperstone electronics. Here is a brief summary of the most significant events:
Hyperstone Electronics USA, Inc. launched in California
Design-ins with Digital Still Camera products. Two major camera manufacturers decided to use the hyperstone microprocessor line in their future product designs
Strategic Design-ins in car multimedia applications
Design-ins in personal email communication products
Hyperstone wins 100 new design contracts
Launch of the hyperstone E1-32 / 66 MHz CPU
Participation in the Embedded Systems ’97 show in Sindelfingen
Participation in the Embedded Systems ’97 show in San Jose
Participation in the DSP World Expo / ICSPAT ’97 in San Diego
Launch of the new E1-32X device at the Microprocessor Forum ’97 in San Jose
1st hyperstone product and developers conference in Konstanz, Germany
New distributors in Taiwan, China, Spain and Italy
Strategic partnerships with Etnoteam, Visual Tools, Eonic Systems for software and system availability
and several more ......
Worldwide Network Grows
Hyperstone recently signed co-operation agreements with influential new distributors in Taiwan (Solomon Technologies), China (TwinStar), and Spain (Comelta). These companies will play an important role in the growing network of hyperstone distributors and representatives by locating new markets and business opportunities while offering extensive know-how and technical support to customers. Hyperstone currently has active distributors and representatives in Korea (Prochips), UK (Thinking Silicon), Italy (Eurolink), Japan (Jastam), Singapore (Atlas Semiconductors), Israel (Maintronics) and is continuously working to extend this network world-wide. Technical seminars and other relevant events are planned for the hyperstone partners to ensure optimum customer support.