Context is a founder-funded, fabless DRL-based communication chipset company that sells/licenses its proprietary products and technologies to the wireless, Internet and WiFi infrastructure markets. Founded in late 1997 by an international (U.S. and Russian) team, Context continues to add high-value talent to its staff from the U.S., Russia and India.
Communication system houses now demand future baseband signal processors and are eager for software-defined radios (SDRs) possessed of higher computational performance, dynamic flexibility, higher code densities and improved energy efficiencies. Many believe that "DSPs and microprocessors can't do it, ASICs can't do it, and PLDs can't do it." 3
Only baseband signal processors and SDRs, composed of dynamically variable amounts of coarse-grained and fine-grained (see note below) DRL can do it! It is exactly this unique DRL technology that Context is commercializing to achieve signal processing performance levels at or very near the intrinsic computational efficiency of silicon while retaining the complete flexibility to most efficiently "field-map" any and all array-based telecom algorithms.
A note on granularity.
To best match the processing requirements of all communication and application algorithms in the wireless domain, a heterogeneous processing element/array architecture, including both fine- and coarse-grained granularity must be used.
Such an architecture assures the wireless systems house and subscribers of the highest computational power (lowest latencies), best energy-efficiency, highest code densities and greatest flexibility 4.
Heterogeneous "granularity" is THE key to achieving best in class DRL.
From the algorithmists' perspective, granularity (fine- or coarse-grained) relates to the data word sizes involved in processing an algorithm. Typically, bit-level operations are referred to as fine-grained, and multi-bit word sized operations are referred to as coarse-grained.
From the logic designers' perspective, granularity means the degree of modularity within a system. The more granularity, the more configurable the system (FPGA with its gate level configurability, high Si overheads and relatively long reconfiguration times is representative of a fine-grained architecture).
Context DRL architecture, which achieves fine-grained granularity via a bit-serial processing algorithm and coarse-grained granularity via reconfigurable hardware, best meets the requirements of all algorithm granularities throughout the wireless domain and is thereby best in class.
3 Gilder Technology Report, "Your Cell Phone Is A Radio," Vol. IX, No. 1, January 2003, p. 6. /back/
4 Cravotta, Robert, "Stir it up," Technical Editor, EDN, July 10, 2003., pp. 40-48. /back/
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