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 limited time for such evaluations. Furthermore, it may be difficult to gain objective, comparable information from vendors of competing processors.
BDTI recently used its expertise to help a major manufacturer of cellular phones analyze competing DSP cores under consideration for baseband processing in its next generation phones. The manufacturer had used BDTI’s published DSP Kernel Benchmarks™ scores to evaluate performance on physical layer algorithms, and was interested in additional benchmarks to evaluate performance on higher-level tasks. To meet this need, BDTI worked with the manufacturer to define a custom benchmark that would allow fair, apples to apples comparisons between the cores. The core vendors implemented the benchmark and sent their results, along with all tools and code needed to recreate them, to BDTI for independent verification. BDTI then audited the benchmark implementations, validated the results, worked with vendors to resolve discrepancies, and delivered the final results to the manufacturer. The entire project was completed in a few weeks—in time to enable the system developers to meet their schedule.
BDTI’s custom benchmarking services enable system and system-on-chip developers to quickly make confident processor choices and architectural decisions, while reducing the benchmarking workload on their in-house engineering resources. BDTI is enabled by its deep expertise in processors and benchmarking to complete projects quickly and produce relevant and trustworthy results.
Whether reevaluating a previous processor choice, selecting a processor for a new product, or making system architecture decisions, BDTI is in a unique position to help you evaluate processors for your digital signal processing application. To learn more about BDTI’s products and services, please contact Jeremy Giddings at BDTI (giddings@BDTI.com).
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