Last month ParthusCEVA, Inc. announced it would change its name to CEVA, Inc. Along with the name change, the company is shifting its focus to providing signal-processing application solutions based on its DSP cores. These moves come as part of a series of changes for the company, which was formed about a year ago by the merger of Parthus Technologies with the DSP core licensing division of DSP Group. Since the merger, the company has moved its headquarters from Dublin, Ireland to San Jose, California, and has hired a new chief executive officer, a new vice president of business development, and a new chief financial officer.
The organizational changes have been accompanied by changes in the company’s lineup of DSP cores. Today, CEVA announced availability of its newest DSP core, the CEVA-X1620. (The CEVA-X1620 was previously announced as the Cedar1620—see the September 2002 DSP Insider for details.) Most of the DSP cores inherited by the company trace their lineage to the early days of DSP Group’s licensing business. Several of these cores are well established and supported by a mature development infrastructure. In contrast, the CEVA-X1620 is an all-new design, and the quality of its development infrastructure is not yet known.
BDTI recently completed an analysis of the CEVA-X1620. Based on its projected BDTIsimMark2000™ score of 3620 at 450 MHz in a 0.13-micron process, the CEVA-X1620 is the fastest licensable DSP core benchmarked by BDTI to date. In comparison, the next-fastest DSP core benchmarked by BDTI is the StarCore SC1400, which has a projected BDTIsimMark2000 score of 3420 at 305 MHz in a 0.13-micron process. The CEVA-X1620 is faster than its competitors partly because it has a high projected clock rate. For example, the CEVA-X1620 projected clock rate is nearly 50% higher than that of the SC1400.
The CEVA-X1620 is also projected to be faster than competing off-the-shelf DSPs. For example, BDTI’s analysis shows that the CEVA-X1620 is projected to be slightly faster than the 600 MHz Analog Devices ’BF53x (Blackfin) and about 2.5 times faster than the 300 MHz Texas Instruments ’C55x. (Benchmark scores for these and other processors are available at http://www.BDTI.com//Resources/BenchmarkResults/BDTImark2000.)
Of course, speed is only one of many factors potential CEVA-X1620 licensees will consider. In particular, the CEVA-X1620 targets portable applications where energy efficiency is a paramount concern. BDTI has not yet evaluated the energy efficiency of the CEVA-X1620, so its standing on this metric remains unknown. Potential licensees are also likely to rank development infrastructure as a top consideration, and as mentioned earlier, the quality of the CEVA-X1620 development infrastructure is also unknown. The success of the CEVA-X1620 will likely depend on CEVA’s ability to deliver leading energy efficiency and development infrastructure as well as competitive processing speed.
The CEVA-X1620 is available now. For licensing information, contact CEVA, whose new web site is http://www.ceva-dsp.com.
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