Today Analog Devices announced four new members of its SHARC family. These new chips primarily target audio applications, and have a variety of audio-specific peripherals and I/O ports. The new chips include the ADSP-21266, ’21267, ’21364, and ’21365.
The ’21266 and ’21267 primarily target car audio systems. The ’21266 is currently sampling at 150 MHz, and the ’21267 will begin sampling at 200 MHz in the first quarter of 2004. The ’21364 and ’21365 target high-performance car and professional audio systems, and will begin sampling in the first (’21365) and second (’21364) quarters of 2004. The ’21364 and ’21365 employ a slightly deeper pipeline than other family members, yielding a higher top clock speed of 300 MHz. The ’2136x chips are assembly-code compatible (but not binary compatible) with the other SHARC family members. Pricing for the four new parts will range from $9.95 for the ’21267 to $24.95 for the ’21364 in 10,000-unit quantities.
This announcement continues Analog Devices’ reinvigoration of its floating-point lineup. Just last August the company announced 200 MHz members of the SHARC family (see DSP Insider, October 2003), which doubled the family’s performance compared to earlier chips. With the jump to 300 MHz, the new ADSP-213xx chips will be even faster—though the deeper pipeline means that they probably won’t get the full 50% speedup suggested by the increased clock rate, and users may need to re-optimize code written for other SHARC family members to achieve maximum performance. At $9.95, the ADSP-21267 also sets a new low price point for the family.
The new chips will primarily compete with TI’s TMS320C67x 32-bit floating-point family, and with Motorola’s audio-oriented 24-bit fixed-point architecture, the DSP563xx. Compared to Motorola’s chips, the new SHARC chips have several advantages. The SHARC’s 32-bit floating-point data format offers better signal fidelity and easier programming. In addition, BDTI’s analysis shows that the new SHARC family members are considerably faster than the DSP563xx. But the DSP563xx is available in less-expensive versions (down to $4.50 at 100 MHz), and it is more energy-efficient. Thus, the DSP563xx is likely to win sockets where cost and energy efficiency are critical. Compared to TI’s 225 MHz ’C67x, the 300 MHz SHARCs will be noticeably faster.
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