Consortium description

ALaRI – Switzerland

The Advanced Learning and Research Institute (ALaRI) was established in 1999 in Lugano, Switzerland, with the mission to offer an innovative teaching and research program to individuals who want to achieve a unique specialization in Embedded Systems. The ALaRI Institute is part of the University of Lugano, one of the eight Universities and two Technical Universities belonging to the Swiss Higher Education System and recognized by the Swiss Federal Government.
This initiative is the outcome of the synergy created by three “animators”: the European Academia, the American Academia and the High-Tech Industry. The members of the steering committee come from these three “worlds” and work to develop synergies among these three sectors.
The ALaRI Institute’s main research areas are hardware/software design of embedded micro-systems, with specific relation to high-performance applications. ALaRI aims to create a bridge between software technologies and electronic engineering, by exploring cutting-edge topics and addressing its research toward pragmatic industrial problems coming from the “real world”.
Currently, the Master of Engineering in Embedded Systems Design is the main program embodying the mission of the ALaRI Institute.

CEA (CEA) - France

Two Laboratories of the Direction de la Recherche Technologique at CEA – the French Atomic Energy Commission- will be involved in LoMoSa+:

CEA-LETI, the Laboratory for Electronics & Information Technology has a considerable investment in personnel (staff is approximately 1200 people, among whom 850 CEA employees), know-how and equipment. LETI is one of the largest applied research laboratories in Europe. The main activities of LETI are dealing with electronics, microelectronics, microsystems, and optoelectronics. LETI mainly aims at helping industrial partners to improve their competitiveness through technological innovation in the field of electronics and microelectronics. LETI commits 80 % of its activity to end-product research with its partners. LETI has also an active patent policy (more than 100 new patents per year).Inside the Circuits and Systems Design (DCIS) Department, the ASIC design team is more than 80 people composed of engineers and PhD students. Main activities are related to digital-, RF- , analog- design, devices modelization and characterisation, IC tests, and layout.
Low power design is one of the strong activities, covering SOI technology design, power management, low-power architecture.

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CEA-LIST

CEA-LIST is a research department inside CEA, which is a French R&D governmental agency whose field of expertise ranges from nuclear industry to bio sciences. Based in Ile-de-France (in the neighbourhood of Paris), LIST combines basic research and industrial R&D within a dynamic structure, and is mainly financed by industrial contracts. The project-based culture of its 300 scientists, engineers and technicians makes it a natural partner for industry seeking breakthrough technology, from the initial concept down to working demonstrators. CEA-LIST is primarily concerned with the development of technology that combine software and hardware to form highly integrated complex systems – “software intensive systems”. The research activities are structured into industry-driven projects, around three major themes, the embedded systems, the interactive systems and the sensors and signal processing. In embedded systems CEA-LIST focuses on the method and tools to successfully design such a system with appropriate architecture, software, and an optimal level of safety.

Diseño de Sistemas en Silicio, S.A.  (DS2) - Spain

DS2 is a fabless silicon design house and the leading supplier of silicon and software for Power line Communications (PLC). Founded in 1998, DS2 produced first time working silicon and is currently marketing its first generation chipsets with performance rates of up to 45Mbps. DS2  technology  converts the existing electricity grid and domestic power lines into a high-speed communications network supporting voice, video and data services, at low cost. DS2 technology not only delivers high performance it is also flexible and efficient supporting co-existence between the PLC access and LAN markets.
Having analyzed the strategies of the main players in this market, DS2 strongly believes the way to success is by forming partnerships with, whom it feels, are the key players in the power line market: the Electricity Utilities, the Telecommunications and CE Equipment Manufacturers and the xDSL and Telecom Operators. DS2´s marketing strategy is based on the formation of alliances and partnerships with customers and involves extensive field trials around the world as well as direct involvement in standardization activities and direct sales. DS2´s current customers are the leading providers of  PLC solutions world wide: Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Schneider Electric Powerline Communications, Amperion (start-up with capital from Cisco, American Electric Power and the venture capital group Read Leaf),  as well as other customers in South America, China, United States and Europe.

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NXP France (Sophia Semiconducteurs)

NXP Semiconductors France is a part of NXP Semiconductors (headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands) which employs over 33,000 people in more than 50 countries. With sales of around EURO 4.9 billion in 2003, NXP Semiconductors is one of the world's top semiconductor suppliers. We strive to be the leading provider of semiconductor-based solutions for connected consumer and communications applications.
With one in six people on the planet owning a mobile phone, mobile communications is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. Consequently, it is a key market for NXP Semiconductors. As a world leader in mobile communications, our expertise extends across global standards including GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, TD-SCDMA and CDMA for 2.5 and 3G applications.
NXP Sophia Antipolis, located in the South of France, specializes in the design and marketing of advanced Systems on Chips (SoC’s) for mobile communications (covering mobile applications everywhere: on the move, at home, in the office and in the car), from product specifications and development to applications and customer support.
Today, our Sophia Antipolis innovation centre concentrates its resources on developing system solutions in the following key areas:
• Base-band solutions for cellular handset and infrastructure technologies (GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS)
• Base-band solutions for wireless connectivity (Bluetooth TM *)
• NexperiaTM Multimedia Mobile System Solutions
• Design solutions for System on Chip (SoC)
• Libraries and process technology development.
In Sophia Antipolis, we operate globally and work closely with our other mobile communications competency centres and with the various Technical Centres (like PITS) spread all over the world, to support customer-specific products.

NXP Semiconductors (NXP)

NXP Semiconductors  of the Netherlands is a partner in the MEDEA+ programme.

STMicroelectronics (STM)

STMicroelectronics (France) is a partner in the MEDEA+ programme.

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Thales Communications (Thales)

Thales Communications, France, is a partner in the MEDEA+ programme

Thomson (Thomson)

Thomson Multimedia, France, is a partner in the MEDEA+ programme

TIMA Laboratory - France

TIMA is one of the 40 Laboratories of the UJF (Université Joseph Fourier).
TIMA is focusing on various aspects of the design, CAD and test of circuits and systems. The Laboratory is approximately 120 people large. It is organized in research groups: Micro and Nano Systems (MNS), Reliable Mixed-signal Systems (RMS), System Level Synthesis (SLS), Verification and modeling of Digital Systems (VDS), QuaLiFication of circuits (QLF), and Concurrent Integrated Systems (CIS). The Laboratory is also hosting the CMP Service, started in 1981 to serve Universities and research Laboratories for integrated circuits manufacturing. To date, CMP served 500+ Institutions in 60 countries for integrated circuits manufacturing down to .12µ CMOS and .35µ SiGe BiCMOS from STMicroelectronics, and has established an agreement with a major IP provider to allow the design and manufacturing of very complex SoCs.
The System-Level Synthesis (SLS) group in TIMA laboratory investigates application-specific multi-processor systems on chip. Research topics include multiple and mixed-level specification of heterogeneous systems, multi-core architecture for networks and systems on chip, hardware/software on-chip communication design at transaction level modeling, memory design for multi-processor systems-on-chip, hardware/software interfaces debug, reconfigurable prototyping platform for multi-processor SoC.
Recently, SLS group performed a joint research project called ArchiFlex on HdS for multi-processor systems with STMicroelectronics and CEA-Leti laboratory located in Grenoble, France. SLS group also contributed to the HdS part of MEDEA+ 2003 roadmap.

University of Cantabria (UC – Subcontractor to DS2) - Spain

The University of Cantabria is the public University in the autonomous region of Cantabria with more than 10.000 students. The Microelectronics Engineering Group of the University started its training and research activities in the area of integrated circuits design in 1980. Since that time, the Group has participated in several national and international projects. Currently, its main research interests in Embedded System Design (ESD) are system-level specification, performance evaluation, real-time analysis and SW/HW generation and verification. These research activities have been partially funded by the Human Capital and Mobility program, the ESPRIT 26971 CoMES project, the Feder program and the Medea+ A511 ToolIP project. In ToolIP, they developed a microprocessor core in SystemC and a SystemC library for performance evaluation. The results of these research activities have been published in some of the most important conferences, journals and books in the area.
The Microelectronics Engineering Group of the University of Cantabria is also involved in the EUREKA/ITEA MERCED project is in the development of the simulation environment using SystemC for which an abstract executive model of the platform will be developed. This work is based on their expertise in the use of SystemC in the executable specification; performance analysis and automatic code generation for HW/SW embedded systems.
The Microelectronics Engineering Group of the University of Cantabria maintains a close relationship with DS2 as a subcontractor for research activities in the area of system design methodologies. This was the case in both the ToolIP and MERCED projects.