Who is Wipro-NewLogic?

Wipro-NewLogic is headquartered in Lustenau, Austria, and is a leading global supplier of IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN, Bluetooth intellectual property (IP) cores and other elements for the next generation cellular technology. A significant part of the business is providing analog and digital IC design services where the company has a wide range of expertise, including experience in developing 90nm IC designs. Wipro-NewLogic was acquired in December 2005 by Wipro Technologies Ltd.

Where is Wipro-NewLogic situated?

Wipro-NewLogic's headquarter is situated in Lustenau, Austria. It is strategically located at the border between Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy. It is one hours drive from Zurich International airport. Wipro-NewLogic has subsidiaries in: Munich/Germany, Sophia Antipolis/France.

How many people are employed?

Wipro-NewLogic has about 350 employees.

What kind of design expertise do you have?

Wipro-NewLogic has a wide range of design expertise focused on integrated circuit and system-on-chip design. We have the sophisticated tools and know-how needed to design complex chips, as well as excellent relationships with leading IC manufacturers.

What is intellectual property and why is it important?

Intellectual property (IP) is the know-how needed to design complex functional blocks into ICs. Simply explained, IP consists of circuitry, specifications, layout and mask artwork, simulation results, test programs, software and documentation; in fact everything the designer would need to be able to build his own system-on-a-chip (SoC). Wipro-NewLogic does not manufacture our own chips but we licensed this silicon IP to fabless design house or ASIC/ASSP vendors. IP has become very important as the scale and complexity of IC design has increased immensely. In order to meet time-to-market pressures, much use is made of pre-designed and pre-verified functional blocks which can be used over and over again, or tailored to the designer specific requirements. This is the essence of IP.

What kind of IP does Wipro-NewLogic offer?

Wipro-NewLogic offers IP for wireless communications like 802.11 standard and Bluetooth. We also provide EEPROM and a range of high performance analog and mixed signal IP cores from basic building blocks to complete systems.

Why license for IP?

Silicon IP provides a fast time to market way to produce an ASIC. IP is a silicon proven and 100% fully functional block where IC designers just need to take care of the connectivity to the IP. No tuning, testing and modification is needed.

I have heard about Wireless LAN. What is it?

A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a flexible data communication system implemented as an extension to, or as an alternative for, a wired LAN within a building or campus. Using electromagnetic waves, WLANs transmit and receive data over the air, minimizing the need for wired connections. Thus, WLANs combine data connectivity with user mobility, and, through simplified configuration, enable moveable LANs.

What is WiLD ?

WiLD is the name chosen by Wipro-NewLogic to identify it's 802.11 Wireless LAN IP product family. The WiLD family is a complete platform for Wireless LAN IC and SOC development. It comprises the multi standard WiLD 802.11 a/b/g MAC core, the WiLD 802.11 a/b/g, modem cores (physical layer) and a multiband RF CMOS Radio hard macro with analog or digital interface.

I have heard about Bluetooth ....what is it?

Bluetooth wireless technology is the new cordless standard adopted by more than 1800 companies throughout the world to link portable devices to mobile phones and PCs. It has spurred an unprecedented enthusiasm within the PC and communications industries. Its promises of small size, low-cost and interoperability have fuelled a burst of new ideas and applications possibilities.

What is a Bluetooth core?

A number of quite separate functional blocks are required to make up a complete Bluetooth system; a baseband controller, a RISC processor and memory and a radio transceiver. Each of these functional blocks can be designed as a core, and be incorporated into a custom specific design.

What Bluetooth Cores does Wipro-NewLogic offer?

Wipro-NewLogic currently offers a baseband processor core, a complete Bluetooth software stack and a radio core. We do not offer a RISC processor as these are readily available from other vendors (eg. ARM).

What is BOOST ?

BOOST is the name chosen by Wipro-NewLogic to identify its Bluetooth IP products. The BOOST product range consists of an embeddable Bluetooth hardware core, a full Bluetooth software protocol stack and a Bluetooth CMOS transceiver

What about software?

Of course, no Bluetooth system is complete without software. A Bluetooth system needs a so-called protocol stack which takes care of the communication between the various Bluetooth devices. Wipro-NewLogic has developed their BOOST software stack using SDL, a particularly efficient and flexible programming language. This enables users to customize the stack to their specific system requirements (and selected microcontroller) very easily.

How was the software developed?

Wipro-NewLogic protocol stack has been developed in SDL using Telelogic Tau. This allows an improved simulation of each single layer and of the complete system. The SDL language also improves the readability and the maintainability of the software, thus guaranteeing an easy evolution towards future standard modifications.

Can I use the BOOST software with any baseband processor?

Although the BOOST Software was developed in conjunction with Wipro-NewLogic baseband processor cores, it can be used as the heart of any compliant Bluetooth system. In fact, the upper layers of the protocol stack are not hardware dependent. The lower levels can be customized to suit specific hardware configurations.

Can I use the BOOST core with different RF modules?

Yes, the BOOST baseband processor core can be supplied with a number of different radio transceiver interfaces eg. Silicon Wave, Infineon and, of course, Wipro-NewLogic own BOOST Radio core.

Does Wipro-NewLogic offer a Bluetooth development system?

Wipro-NewLogic is not in the business of selling Bluetooth development systems. However, a Bluetooth system designer can quickly and easily build his own development system using a third party development board, such as the popular CARMeN HSDT200 emulation board from SIDSA. This board features an ARM7TDM1 RISC processor and an FPGA. Together with the BOOST evaluation kit supplied by Wipro-NewLogic, it is possible for the user to build a complete Bluetooth development system.

Why BOOST from Wipro-NewLogic?

BOOST is the only BQB qualified Bluetooth baseband IP. It has a low gate count of 35K gates. It provides a customer faster time to market, low entry fee, low development cost and off the shelves IP. It is also designed for easy integration in ASIC.

How do I buy a Wipro-NewLogic core and what about business model?

IP is not bought it is licensed! Wipro-NewLogic offers a number of licensing models which can be tailored to meet the customer specific requirements. There are 2 main models available; a royalty model and a non-royalty model.

What is the royalty model and how does it work?

In the royalty model, the customer pays a one-time licensing fee to Wipro-NewLogic for use of the Wipro-NewLogic core. In addition, a royalty is paid for every chip made which incorporates the Wipro-NewLogic core.

Are there any other costs involved?

Depending on the customer chosen configuration and process technology, additional engineering work may be required to implement the core. This additional engineering work is billed as an NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering charge).

What is the advantage of a royalty model?

The cores represent a substantial investment for Wipro-NewLogic, and offer the customer a great deal of know-how in a form they can use very quickly and with a minimum of effort. On account of the significant investment which must be recouped, the cores do not come cheaply. In order to make the cores available to customers who have a limited budget, the royalty model was developed. In this case, the up front costs are kept to a minimum and, to some extent, the risk is shared between Wipro-NewLogic and the customer. Only if the customers product is successful in the marketplace will royalty payments result, and Wipro-NewLogic investment re-paid. In order to manage this risk Wipro-NewLogic does need to be selective as to whom it offers the royalty business model.

What about chips. Can Wipro-NewLogic provide me with actual Bluetooth or Wireless LAN components?

Wipro-NewLogic is neither a semiconductor manufacturer, nor a fabless semiconductor house. Therefore we do not supply finished ICs (although we may choose to supply some sample parts for evaluation purposes). However, our WiLD or BOOST cores have been licensed by a number of companies who plan to market their own Bluetooth chips and chipsets. Wipro-NewLogic will be happy to provide the names of those companies who offer WiLD or BOOST powered products.

Can I use Wipro-NewLogic cores on an FPGA?

Yes, indeed, our board development platform implements the cores on an FPGA.