Technical Marketing

Plurality’s Hypercore Joins the Multi-Core Fray

There’s no shortage of startup companies with massively parallel processor architectures targeting high-performance signal processing applications, but Israel-based newcomer Plurality (www.plurality.com) isn’t discouraged. The company recently introduced a new multi-core architecture, Hypercore, that can support from 16 to 256 RISC processors on a single chip. Plurality is betting that its patented “synchronizer/scheduler” hardware—which the company claims enables “the programmability of a Read more...

Case Study: Custom Benchmarks for Emerging Applications

Looking beyond today’s established high-volume applications, processor and SoC vendors often seek growth in promising emerging applications.  In entering any new market, vendors face two key challenges. First, they must ensure that their product is competitive;  and second, they must convince prospective customers of their product’s advantages. In emerging markets these challenges are more severe due to a lack of well understood application requirements and established benchmarks.  In Read more...

Case Study: Multi-Tiered Software Optimization

It’s generally accepted that, for processing engines, there is a trade-off between efficiency and generality.  The more a chip is geared towards a specific application, the more efficient it’s likely to be (in terms of speed, energy consumption, and cost).  On one end of the spectrum you have traditional FPGAs, which are completely general-purpose, and on the other are fixed-function chips, which are completely application specific. In between these extremes lie various types of processors, Read more...

Case Study: Multi-Tiered Software Optimization

While nearly all signal processing applications require some degree of software optimization, some applications require a sophisticated, multi-tiered optimization approach in order to meet their performance goals. To obtain the most efficient code, DSP software must be optimized at four distinct levels. First, the software architecture and data flow must be designed to take maximum advantage of the processor’s resources. Second, the appropriate data types must be selected—too big and you’re Read more...

Case Study: Increasing the Visibility of Your Products

However compelling a new product may be, it won’t succeed unless prospective customers know about it. Achieving customer awareness can be particularly challenging for small companies that lack multi-million-dollar marketing budgets, but it can also pose a challenge for established companies entering new markets. An effective way for technology providers to boost visibility of their products is through BDTI’s benchmarking and analysis services. BDTI publishes its respected independent benchmark Read more...

BDTI Certifies ARC Video Subsystem H.264 Decode Performance

This month BDTI and silicon intellectual property licensor ARC International announced completion of BDTI Solution Certification™ of the H.264 video decode performance of the ARC Video Subsystem.  The ARC Video Subsystem, the first product to be certified under BDTI’s Solution Certification Service, is a programmable subsystem capable of supporting multiple video standards.  In certifying the solution, BDTI has independently verified its performance using proprietary BDTI bitstreams and Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Signal Processing Isn't a Commodity

At the Consumer Electronics Show last month I was struck (not for the first time) by the number of consumer electronics products that rely on digital signal processing—at this point, nearly all of them. In fact, so many of today's products incorporate digital signal processing-based functions that it's tempting to start viewing these functions as commodities. But in most cases, DSP functions aren't going to become commodities anytime soon. They may be ubiquitous, but they're not Read more...

Case Study: Benchmarks for Tools, Software Libraries, and More

System developers often rely on processor benchmarks to gauge system performance. However, the processor is just one of many components that determines overall performance. Fully understanding system performance requires careful analysis of many other elements, such as code-generation tools and third-party software libraries. Unfortunately, a host of factors can confound attempts to analyze these components. For example, it is difficult to prevent variations in programmer skill and style from Read more...

Case Study: Custom Benchmarks

Even for established system designs that have had success using a particular processor, rapidly evolving application requirements and frequently changing processor offerings may necessitate a reevaluation of which processor best meets the product’s needs. The outcome of such a reevaluation can have profound and lasting effects on the future of the product; for example, whether it is competitive in terms of performance, energy efficiency, and cost. Unfortunately, system designers often have Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Bamboozling with Benchmarks, Part 2

In the February 2006 column, I listed four of the Top Ten ways in which processor benchmark results are commonly misused. This month I’ll cover the remaining six. If you rely on benchmark results, you’ll want to watch out for these. Comparing projected benchmark results for a chip that doesn’t yet exist to results for a chip that does. Mixing projected and actual benchmark results isn’t necessarily bad (and can be quite informative) but there are a couple of ways in which it can be Read more...