Automotive

And Stellaris Makes Four: TI Acquires Luminary Micro, Expands MCU Lineup

Earlier this month Texas Instruments announced that it had acquired Luminary Micro, a start-up fabless semiconductor vendor that sold ARM Cortex-M3-based microcontrollers. Luminary’s “Stellaris” family of Cortex-M3 MCUs has been on the market since 2006. Current Stellaris chips operate at up to 50 MHz; TI expects to sample 80 and 100 MHz chips later this year. Stellaris chip prices range from $1.00 - $7.00 in 10K quantities. TI has also announced Stellaris-based development kits starting at $99 Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Fried Fahrvergnügen

Do you ever look at a piece of hardware and wonder, “Why, oh why, did they build it like that?”  This is what I’m thinking as I look at my 2001 Volkswagen Passat, a car that is now completely dysfunctional because of an unfortunate (yet easily foreseen) intersection of water and electronic circuitry.  Let me explain. The car has a sunroof, and the sunroof has two gutters and tubes that route rainwater through the body of the car and dump it outside. But like all gutters, they can get plugged Read more...

Atmel Announces CAP Customizable Microcontrollers

In June Atmel announced the Customizable Atmel Processor (CAP), a family of customizable microcontrollers, and two initial devices. Customization in the CAP is achieved via a gate array block in which users can implement functions ranging from processor cores and peripherals to algorithm accelerators. Atmel intends the CAP devices to be used in industrial, consumer, medical, and automotive applications, as replacements for the microcontroller-FPGA combinations often used in these applications Read more...

Freescale Unveils Dual-Core Audio DSPs

On January 3rd, Freescale announced the first dual-core members of its Onyx family of audio DSPs.  The first two chips in the family, the DSP56720 and DSP56721, feature two DSP5636x cores operating at 200 MHz.  The chips mainly target high-definition audio processing in next-generation DVD players. To this end, Freescale offers DSP5636x software implementing audio decoders supported by the HD-DVD and Blue-Ray standards, including Dolby Digital+, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD.  In addition to DVD Read more...

Analog Devices Grows Blackfin Family with 4 New Processors

This week, Analog Devices introduced four new members of its Blackfin processor family: the ADSP-BF549, ‘BF548, ‘BF544, and ‘BF542.  These new devices will operate at clock speeds of up to 600 MHz and are intended mainly for automotive applications that incorporate signal processing, such as digital broadcast radio receivers, navigation systems, and rear-seat entertainment equipment.  The new devices feature more on-chip memory than most Blackfin devices (only the high-performance ‘BF535 Read more...

Texas Instruments Announces DaVinci Family Extensions

Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) this week announced four new “DaVinci”-branded processors: the TMS320DM6437, TMS320DM6435, TMS320DM6433 and TMS320DM6431. Priced at $10-23, the media processors target video applications in the car and the home. (All prices in this article are for 10,000 unit quantities.) The new devices are architecturally similar to the first DaVinci chips, the ‘DM6446 and ‘DM6443. These chips and the new ‘DM643x devices both feature a ‘C64x+ core and varying assortments of Read more...

Texas Instruments Announces $5.75 Floating-Point DSP

In September, Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) announced the TMS320C6720 floating-point DSP. Operating at 200 MHz and priced at a modest $5.75 (unless otherwise stated, all prices mentioned in this article are for 10,000 unit quantities), the chip is the latest and least expensive member of TI’s ‘C67x family of 32-bit floating-point DSPs. It is intended for cost-sensitive applications such as musical instruments, medical imaging and biometrics. The ‘C6720 is pin-compatible with the ‘C6722 and Read more...

Inside DSP on Automotive Signal Processing: Feeling the Heat

Special Requirements of Automotive Signal Processing Twenty years ago, automobiles had very few electronic features. Today, nearly every vehicle relies on thousands of electronic components. Although annual growth in worldwide vehicle sales is relatively slow (roughly 3%), there is explosive growth in automotive electronics applications. By 2010, it is estimated that nearly 40% of a vehicle's total value will be attributed to its electronics (see Figure 1) and much of the electronics will be Read more...

Inside DSP on Automotive Signal Processing: Street Smarts

Imagine getting on a bus and going for a ride on the highway—with no driver. Or imagine having your car tell you that you’re about to hit a traffic snarl and suggest an alternate route. Pretty cool, right? These applications are possible only with advanced digital signal processing—not only inside the vehicle, but outside as well. Digital signal processing is already used outside of the car in automotive-related application areas ranging from traffic control to road maintenance. Radar speed Read more...

Inside DSP on Automotive Signal Processing: Processors for Automotive Signal Processing

Automobiles are undergoing a digital makeover: gone forever are the days of pure mechanical systems and analog electronics. Today’s automobile is a digital automobile, incorporating dozens of embedded processors connected via multiple digital networks, controlling and optimizing the operation of nearly every system in the automobile. And even more processors are coming in future generations of cars, as more complex signal processing algorithms enable advances in safety, engine and emission Read more...