PPRAM Consortium Foundation and role of 1355

[Kazuto.MATSUI@xxxxxx]

     Dear Peter Thompson,
     
     
     
     As I told you before my marketing strategy plans for 1355 are 
     gradually working. 
     
     
     PPRAM (Parallel Processing Random Access Memory) Consortium Foundation 
     was officially announced on 20th of January collaborating with many 
     universities and governmental institute.  
     
     Here I attached a brief explanation of this consortium.
     
     A simple definition of PPRAM is the parallel/distributed architecture 
     of integrating:-
     
     PPRAM := { PROCESSOR + DRAM + PPRAM-Link }
     
     PROCESSOR := DSP | GRAPHICS | MPU | MPU++ | MPEG2 | whatever
     
     
     with using shared memory and network technology.  
     
     
     
     Beside several small chips (maybe 2-4) can be coexisted inside the 
     same chip if needed.  
     
     A goal of this design is to realize a high performance system with 
     using communicating architecture.  So the key issues are to find the 
     low cost and high speed serial link technology.  
     
     This seems to become a transputer-like architecture when occam is 
     ported.  Or maybe T9000 must be reproduced from Japanese company !!  I 
     discussed the possibility of porting occam to one Professor at Tokyo 
     Institute of Technology.  He had a strong interest of re-trargeting 
     occam to PPRAM chip.  But it takes more time to decide which 
     programming language is suitable for PPRAM.  
     
     Now the consortium has started to look at several STDs such as IEEE 
     1394, 1596(SCI) and 1355(HIC). But they already know what are the 
     benefits of using 1355 instead of 1394, 1596.  So most of consortium 
     people are focusing to 1355 technology as a PPRAM-Link. (But some are 
     still sticking on SCI.) 
     
     As I am requested from Dr. Murakami who is a leader of this project 
     (at Kyushu University) to support 1355 technology when designing PPRAM 
     chip, I think I can lead these industrial people to the right way.  
     Probably we need to have a joint international conference of HIC and 
     Parallel Prpcessing to stimulate this consortium sometime in the 
     future.
     
     This consortium continues to work on finalizing specifications of 
     PPRAM-Link and API(application interface) by the end of this year. And 
     final decision of making chip will be made by themselves not me.  
     Consortium only gives a guideline of PPRAM architecture to all 
     members.
     
     Targeted marketing area is consumer area but not super computer area.  
     
     The other thing I must give appreciation to Paul Walker is that he 
     will kindly submit a general article of 1355 technology for Nikkei 
     Electronics.  (I think deadline of an article is the end of January.)  
     This article probably will be a trigger of inspiring Japanese people.  
     I have already spoken to consortium people.  So they are really 
     expecting to read his article !!  I will try to get many copies when 
     issued for the further distribution.  Then 1355 technology will be 
     well known more and more in Japan.
     
     
     
     
                                                       Regards,
     
     
                                                    Kazuto Matsui
     
     
     ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
     Currently 11 companies are joining.  In future this number will be 
     increased more.     
     
     
     
     << Industry >>
     
     1.  NEC Corp.
     2.  OKI Electric Industry Co.(Multimedia LSI Business Development    
                                   Centre)
     3.  TOSHIBA (System ULSI Engineering Laboratory) 
     4.  SONY (Media Processing Lab)
     5.  Fuji Xerox (Advanced Technology & Engineering Centre) 
     6.  Matsushita Electric Co. (Semiconductor Research Lab) 
     7.  Mitsubishi Electric Co.(System LSI Development Lab) 
     8.  Fujitsu (System LSI Development Lab)
     9.  NTT (System Electronics Co.)
     10. Hitachi 
     11. Samsung Electronics Co.
     
     << Academia >>
     
     1.  Keio University
     2.  Tohoku University
     3.  Waseda University
     4.  Kyushu Institute of Technology
     5.  University of Tokyo
     6.  Kyoto University
     7.  University of Electro-Communications 
     8.  Ochanomizu University
     9.  University of Tsukuba
     10. Kyushu University
     11. Tokyo Institute of Technology
     
     << Governmental Institute >>
     1. RWCP
     2. ISIT