Newtec Shares Core Values With TurboConcept

Intellectual Property Cores (IP cores) are blocks of logic or data used in creating a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for a product. These wee components should be entirely portable in that they should be easy to insert into any vendor technology or design methodology. There are firm cores, hard cores and software cores. Hard cores are the actual physical manifestations of the IP design and are best used for plug-and-play applications. The firm cores also carry placement data but are configurable to various applications. Soft cores are the most flexible of the three, and are evident as a netlist, or a list of the logic gates and associated interconnections that compose an integrated circuit) or hardware description language (HDL) code.



Why is this important? For a company such as Newtec, extremely so! Because Newtec has just acquired 100 percent of the shares of TurboConcept, a French company who is a leading provider of IP cores that are used in satellite and wireless communications. TurboConcept, located in Brest, specializes in the development of IP cores for Forward Error Correction codes, such as Turbo and LDPC codes. These cores are integrated into the receiver chips of many satellite receivers, wireless modems and mobile handsets. The strange info regarding LDPC codes is that these were actually invented back in the 60’s as a type of error-correcting code. Ignored for the next 30 years or so, these LDPC codes are truly poised to become THE standard in error-correction technology, from everyday cell phones to interplanetary communication. Newtec has obviously struck gold in Brest. By the way, if you’re heading to IBC, Newtec will be in Booth 1.445—Sint-Niklaas, Belgium—August 31, 2007