CHICAGO, Ill., March 30, 1998 -- Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today announced the newest member of its TX SystemRISC^™ family of 32-bit MIPS^®-based RISC processors. Designated the TMPR3922U and manufactured using Toshiba's 0.25-micron process technology, this new processor offers enhanced performance and new levels of integration. Suited for high-performance PDAs (personal digital assistants) and interactive communication applications, the TMPR3922U is a 166 megahertz (MHz), 2.5 volt (V)/3.3V, five-stage pipelined Application Specific Standard Product (ASSP) based on Toshiba's TX39 RISC processor core and the R3000A architecture from MIPS Technologies, Inc.

"Handheld PCs are requiring more and more performance as users demand compatibility with their desktop PCs," said Dave Kinnear, senior manager, MPU marketing for Toshiba. "In addition to the TMPR3922U, which provides the processing solution for these handheld devices, Toshiba also supplies support tools, reference boards and software to help our customers get to market quickly."

Impressive On-Chip Features
The TMPR3922U's on-chip features include an integrated Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) circuit to support the Microsoft^® Windows^® CE operating system and improve entry-swapping performance. A high-speed multiplier and accumulator (MAC) executes 32-bit x 32-bit multiplier operations with a 64-bit accumulation in a single clock cycle to support software modems (V.34, 28.8 kilobits per second) as well as a variety of memory controllers.

Many of the peripheral functions needed for mobile information terminals are included on the TMPR3922U. For example, ISDN, RS-232C, IrDA and PCMCIA interfaces are provided on-chip. The IrDA interface supports FIR (IrDA1.1), enabling high-speed communication for multimedia data such as video and voice data.

"Toshiba has addressed the low-power requirements of the portable market," said Kinnear. "The TX39 core has a separate 2.5V power supply while a 3.3V power supply is maintained for the external I/O interface." On-board power management enables the operation mode to be changed in real time via software, maximizing battery life. One such mode is the CPU clock stop mode, which effectively reduces CPU core power consumption to zero.

Product Specifications

TX SystemRISC Reference System
Toshiba offers a TX SystemRISC reference system based on the TMPR3922U for OEMs developing Windows CE products. OEMs are provided with the original device drivers, OAL (OEM Adaptation Layer), Monitor/Diagnostic/Bootloader and IP, as well as Softmodem and SmartMedia™ drivers.

Pricing and Availability
Samples of the TMPR3922U will be available in second quarter 1998 with full production scheduled for fourth quarter 1998. Pricing starts at $40.00 in 1,000 piece quantities.

TAEC is the North American manufacturing, sales and marketing arm of one of the world's largest suppliers of semiconductors, integrated circuits and electronic components for industrial and consumer applications. The company is the recognized leader in CMOS technology and has one of the broadest IC product lines in the industry. In addition, Toshiba is a leading manufacturer of technologically advanced electron tubes and solid state devices, including color picture tubes, display monitor tubes, liquid crystal displays, medical tubes, rechargeable batteries, microwave components, laser diodes and optical transmission devices.

The Systems IC Division is located at 1060 Rincon Circle, San Jose, CA 95131. For more company information, please visit TAEC's Internet home page at: http://www.toshiba.com/taec.

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