Last month MIPS announced a set of signal-processing-oriented instruction set extensions for its RISC architecture. Although these extensions significantly improve the signal-processing capabilities of the MIPS architecture, they won't win MIPS any special attention—all the other major general-purpose processor architectures have been offering signal-processing-oriented features for years. Indeed, it is starting to become difficult to find a processor that doesn't include some kind of signal processing hardware. These days, signal processing features are available in everything from low-cost microcontrollers to high-end FPGAs.
I've also noticed that an increasing number of processors incorporate not just traditional signal processing features like fast multipliers, but also features designed to speed video processing. For example, processors ranging from the ARM's ARM11 to Analog Devices' Blackfin include special instructions to accelerate motion estimation, a critical task in video compression.
A casual observer might wonder if all this attention to signal processing—particularly video processing—is just the latest fad in processor design. But processor vendors have good reasons to focus on signal processing. Signal processing tasks make heavy demands on processors, and architectures that lack signal processing features usually perform poorly on these tasks. Signal processing performance is becoming increasingly important because signal processing is essential for an increasingly diverse set of end products. In the past, signal processing technology was focused heavily on communications applications. Today, however, signal processing is used for everything from enhancing digital television displays to controlling electric power steering.
Because the end products that use signal processing are increasingly diverse, it's not surprising that the range of processors offering signal-processing features is also increasingly diverse. After all, an application that can get by with a $2 DSP-enhanced microcontroller won't have much use for a $2000 DSP-enhanced FPGA.
The proliferation of signal-processing features is good new for system designers, because it gives them more processor options than ever. But it is bad news for processor vendors, because it means that simply adding signal-processing features no longer gives them a competitive advantage. Even adding specialized features—such as features for video processing—may not be enough. Instead, processor vendors must offer comprehensive solutions that go beyond architectural enhancements. For example, a processor vendor can gain an advantage by offering solutions that include application-specific peripherals, software modules and development boards. With so many processors now targeting signal processing, only vendors who provide this kind of holistic solution will stand out from the crowd.
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