Qualcomm recently opened up the QDSP6 (aka "Hexagon") DSP core in its Snapdragon SoCs to programming access by its customers and software developer partners. Multimedia applications, for example, can benefit from leveraging QDSP6 processing resources, boosting overall performance, minimizing overall power consumption, and freeing up the CPU to tackle other tasks.
But it can take significant time and effort to get up to speed on a new architecture and make optimum use of its potential, no matter how much tools strive to assist your efforts. Such was the situation faced by a well-known multimedia algorithm provider when it prepared to tackle porting and optimizing its code for QDSP6.
Time was short; the algorithm provider’s customer had a tight schedule for its own product. After a careful analysis of the pros and cons involved in tackling an internal engineering effort, therefore, the developer decided to engage the optimization services of BDTI. BDTI's engineers were already very familiar with QDSP6 by virtue of past benchmarking and other projects, reflected in BDTI's short-list status as a Hexagon DSP Access Program member.
The algorithm provider handed over fixed-point reference code to BDTI's engineers, along with performance targets and the requirement that the QDSP6-optimized version must generate a bit-exact output, to simplify verification of functionality. This requirement precluded some optimization options. Nevertheless, BDTI delivered QDSP6-optimized code within the original target timeframe of six weeks, while also meeting the developer's processing load targets.
If you're getting ready to develop, port or optimize software for Qualcomm's QDSP6, consider leveraging BDTI's Hexagon software expertise in order to meet your project's schedule, budget, and performance requirements. For more information, contact Jeremy Giddings at +1 (925) 954 1411 and giddings@BDTI.com.
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