From: dfickes@advice.com (David Fickes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.announce
Subject: Cypress Semi. and Nimbus License Agreement
Date: 23 Jul 92 18:05:39 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.sun.misc

Cypress and Nimbus announce SPARC  Support Chip Partnership
SPARCset gives Cypress complete workstation solution

Austin, Texas and Santa Clara, California - July 22, 1992 - Cypress
Semiconductor's Ross Technology subsidiary and Nimbus Technology
today announced that they have been working together on chipset
development for SPARC workstations since mid-1991.

The product of their partnership is a complete integrated workstation
chipset, which allows computer manufacturers to build
high-performance, single- and dual-processor desktop workstations
compatible with the SPARC standard set by Sun Microsystems. The
chipset has already been announced separately by both companies:
Cypress sells the components under the SPARCset trademark, and Nimbus
markets them as part of its NIM6000M MBus Board Set.

The chipset was architected by a joint team at Ross and Nimbus, then
designed and implemented by Nimbus. Under an agreement signed last
year, Ross financed the development project and prototype
manufacturing, in exchange for exclusive rights to the resulting chip
products. Nimbus retained rights to sell its chips in kits and in
board-level and system-level products.

"This is a definite win-win for Cypress/Ross and Nimbus," according
to Ross Technology president Roger Ross. "The new SPARCset, packaged
with our SPARCore CPU modules, gives us far and away the best
price/performance solution for SPARC compatible manufacturers."

"We are very pleased that Ross and Cypress decided to work with
Nimbus on this chipset technology," said Sanjeev Renjen, president of
Nimbus. "Their worldwide reputation and leading edge SPARC expertise
make them an ideal partner."

Financing deal

The value of the technology contract was not disclosed, but Renjen
indicated that it provided much of the capital for Nimbus' first
year. The source of Nimbus' early funding had not previously been
made public. Under the deal, Nimbus remains independent of Cypress.
The companies have no plans to enter into an equity agreement, they
announced, but they will continue to work closely together.

Exclusive license

The technology agreement gives Cypress exclusive rights to sell the
individual chips of the SPARCset. Cypress also acquired a motherboard
design from Nimbus, to provide to customers as part of a complete
manufacturing solution.

Nimbus will continue to market its NIM6000M Board Set product,
announced on May 5, which bundles the seven chips of the chipset with
a blank workstation motherboard. Nimbus will also sell the chipset in
other board sets currently under development.

"The dual availability provides flexibility to support different
types of customers," explained Renjen. "Manufacturers can buy the
solutions that fit their particular situations and requirements."

Software compatibility

Systems based on the SPARCset/NIM6000M, when used with current and
future SPARC microprocessors, will be compatible with the Solaris
operating system environment from SunSoft, Inc. End users will be
able to run any of the more than 3,900 software applications
available for SPARC workstations.

Full MBus support: multiprocessing and processor upgradeability

The SPARCset/NIM6000M is designed around the MBus, a 64-bit bus
interface standard which allows processor interchangeability and
upgradeability.

The chipset fully supports multiprocessing features of the MBus, to
take advantage of Cypress's CY7C6002K dual-processor SPARCore module
as well as future MP modules. The chipset will also support
hyperSPARCTM, a superscalar RISC processor recently announced by
Cypress. The hyperSPARC processor delivers leading-edge performance,
with a SPECint92 rating estimated at 55.

SPARCset/NIM6000M Product Specifications

The SPARCset/NIM6000M chipset consists of six chips which together
implement all the system logic needed for a high-performance SPARC
compatible workstation design.

The set includes a 64-bit main memory controller with up to 35%
better performance than Sun's SPARCstation2 memory system, and a
sophisticated MBus to SBus translator chip that gives users access to
the hundreds of SBus expansion cards available.

Another important part of the chipset is its integrated MBus color
graphics controller, which can be designed onto a system motherboard.
Because the graphics controller interfaces to the MBus, a 64-bit, 40
MHz bus, it gives accelerated performance at the cost of an ordinary
color frame buffer. This graphics solution also offers scalable
performance: by upgrading the MBus CPU in a system, a user can
linearly improve graphics performance, while traditional accelerator
architectures remain bound by their fixed-performance engines.

Other chips in the set include a DMA (direct memory access)
controller for disk and network interface, an interrupt controller,
and a peripheral I/O controller.

Backgrounds

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation is a leader in the design,
development and manufacture of a broad line of high-performance
digital integrated circuits, fabricated using its proprietary 0.65-
and 0.8-micron CMOS and 0.8-micron BiCMOS technologies. Cypress
offers a range of products, including SPARC microprocessors and
peripherals, PLDs (programmable logic devices), static RAMs
(random-access memories), PROMs (programmable read-only memories),
high-speed ECL (emitter-coupled logic) devices, high-performance
multichip modules, VME bus products, logic devices, and FIFO
(first-in, first-out) memories.

Austin-based Ross Technology is a majority-owned subsidiary of
Cypress Semiconductor Corp. Since 1988, Ross has been a leading
supplier of RISC microprocessors based on the industry-standard SPARC
architecture. Recently the company announced its hyperSPARC
processor, a third-generation superscalar RISC CPU for the MBus.

Nimbus Technology is a privately held corporation with headquarters
in Santa Clara, California. Nimbus was founded in 1991 to develop
silicon solutions for workstation and peripheral manufacturers.
Current products include the NIM6000M MBus Board Set, introduced May
5, and the NIM6018 SBus DMA Controller chip, shipping since
February.

For more information: 	

Spencer Greene, Nimbus Technology     (408) 727-5445 sgreene@nimbus.com
John Hamburger, Cypress Semiconductor (408) 943-2902
David Fickes, ADVICE                  (415) 960-1232 dfickes@advice.com

###

NIM6000M is a trademark of Nimbus Technology
SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc.
SPARCstation ia a trademark of SPARC International, Inc., licensed exclusively to Sun Microsystems, Inc. 
SPARCset, hyperSPARC and SPARCore are trademarks of SPARC International
Other trademarks are property of the respective trademark holders.

-- 
David Fickes 					dfickes@advice.com
ADVICE						phone: 415/960-1232
419 West Dana					  fax: 415/960-1233
Mountain View, CA 94041
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.apps