 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Semiconductors |
| Founded | July 2005,Bristol,UK |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | Mark Lippett (CEO & President) |
| Products | Voice controllers, Multicore microcontrollers, xCore, xCORE-200, xCORE-AUDIO, xCORE-VOICE, xCORE VocalFusion, xTIMEcomposer |
| Brands | xCORE, VocalFusion |
| Website | www |
XMOS is afabless semiconductor company that develops generativesystems-on-chips designed to integrate control,input/output,digital signal processing, andartificial intelligence functions. The company's XCORE platform enables users to generate customizable system-on-chips with real-time reconfigurability and deterministicparallel architecture, enabling developers to execute multiple tasks simultaneously.[1]
XMOS was founded in July 2005 by Ali Dixon, James Foster, Noel Hurley,David May, and Hitesh Mehta.[2] It received seed funding from theUniversity of Bristol enterprise fund, and Wyvernseed fund.[3]
The name XMOS is a loose reference toInmos. Some concepts found in XMOS technology (such as channels and threads) are part of theTransputer legacy.[4]
In the autumn of 2006, XMOS secured funding fromAmadeus Capital Partners,DFJ Esprit, andFoundation Capital.[5] It also has strategic investorsRobert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH,Huawei Technologies, andXilinx Inc, which in 2014 invested $26.2 million.[6] Additionally, they received an investment through the sale of 22.3% of the Company's shares to Prelude Trust plc of Cambridge.[7] In September 2017, XMOS secured $15M in an investment round led byInfineon.[8]
In July 2017, XMOS acquired SETEM,[9][10] a company that specialises in audio algorithms for source separation.[11][12]
In 2019, XMOS raised $19 million in funding from Harbert European Growth Capital and existing investors.[13]
In December 2023, XMOS signed a joint development agreement with Sonical for Headphone 3.0 technology.[14]
Xmos designs multicore microcontrollers under the XCORE series. While the second generation launched in 2015, had dedicated audiocontroller spun off[15] and were used in soundboards as well as headphone amplifiers,[16][17] the third generation was launched in 2020 and focused on applications within theAIoT.[18] The fourth generation addedRISC-V compatibility and was announced in December 2022.[19][20]
In 2025, it announced a recategorisation of its XCORE hardware, defining it as a Generative System-on-Chip (GenSoC), a type ofSoC that is specifically designed to accommodate generative AI-based natural language tools.[21]
XC is aprogramming language developed by XMOS to supportreal-time,embedded, andparallel programming on the company's xcore processor architecture. It is designed to providedeterministic execution and fine-grainedconcurrency, enabling software-defined solutions for time-critical applications such as audio processing, industrial control, and communications.[citation needed]
XC was introduced by XMOS in the late 2000s as part of its toolchain for programming xcore processors. It was designed to offer a high-level abstraction for expressing parallelism and hardware interaction, building on the principles of theoccam programming language and theCommunicating Sequential Processes (CSP) model developed byTony Hoare.[citation needed]
Over time, XMOS has shifted its development tools toward standardC andC++ compilers, but XC remains a key part of the legacy toolchain and is still supported in the XTC Tools suite.[22][failed verification]
XC combines elements of C with concurrency and communication constructs inspired by occam. Key features include:
par construct.port for I/Otimer for precise timinglock for mutual exclusionXC is supported by the XTC Tools[22][better source needed] suite, which includes:
XC programs are compiled and executed on xcore processors, which feature multiple logical cores capable of executing tasks in parallel. The language allows developers to statically assign tasks to cores and define communication topologies using channels. This model supports deterministic execution, making XC suitable for applications requiring precise timing and low-latency I/O.
As of version 15.3 of the XTC Tools, XMOS has shifted its focus toward using standard C for xcore programming, citing broader developer familiarity and ecosystem support. However, the XC language remains available and continues to be used in legacy and specialized applications.[24][25][better source needed]
51°27′19.0″N2°35′33.3″W / 51.455278°N 2.592583°W /51.455278; -2.592583