Opinion

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Truth in Advertising

If you are a regular reader of this column, you have probably noticed a recurring theme: signal processing applications are becoming more complicated and more varied—and so is the hardware that runs them. Ten years ago, DSPs used fairly simple architectures, and the architectures of most DSPs were similar to one another. Today, many DSPs use very complex architectures, and there is a remarkable amount of variety among DSP architectures. What's more, DSPs increasingly compete with alternatives Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Optimization: It’s Not Just for Compilers

Processor vendors targeting signal processing applications have put a lot of emphasis on compilers over the last few years. Many of the new processor announcements I’ve seen recently stress “compiler friendliness” as one of the main advantages of the new architecture. And vendors like to boast about the enormous amounts of time and money they’ve spent improving their compilers. Even in the era of gigahertz processors, it is hard to meet demanding performance and cost targets without Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—The Alchemist’s Dream

Over the last few months I’ve noticed an increase in the number of tools that transform high-level signal-processing application descriptions into real-time implementations. The appeal of this idea is obvious. Many signal processing applications are initially designed using high-level tools and then migrated into low-level descriptions. Often this migration process involves multiple labor-intensive, error-prone steps. For example, an application might be developed using MATLAB, then re-built Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Picking a Winning Processor

Last month BDTI completed an analysis of the latest DSP cores from the three leading core licensors. Paging through the analysis, I noticed some striking similarities between these competing cores. All three cores use flexible, multi-issue architectures. All three use RISC-like instruction sets. And all three use a mix of 16- and 32-bit instructions. Interestingly, these basic architectural features are also found in many high-end embedded general-purpose processors (GPP). And the Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Thinning the Ranks

I recently had occasion to pick up a copy of the first edition of BDTI’s Buyer’s Guide to DSP Processors, which was published 11 years ago. Flipping through the pages reminded me of how far DSP processors have come since 1994, when 3.0 volts was “low-voltage,” 50 MHz was “impressive speed,” and a 20 MHz Analog Devices ADSP-2115 sold for $21. One thing that struck me was that eleven years ago there were actually more vendors offering general-purpose DSPs (as opposed to application-specific Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—DSP: The Flavor of the Week?

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 Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Processor Vendors’ Tool Dilemma

Signal processing applications are becoming more complicated, and so are the processors that run them. As a result, application developers rely on compilers and other tools more heavily than ever. This has made tools a decisive factor in processor-selection decisions. Indeed, differences in tools are a central consideration when choosing between a digital signal processor (DSP) and a general-purpose processor (GPP). DSP vendors often take a go-it-alone approach when it comes to tools: In Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Turning the Tables

At September’s Intel Developer Forum, Intel President and COO Paul Otellini gave a keynote speech that lacked the usual obsession with clock speed. Instead, Mr. Otellini’s speech focused on issues like parallelism, integration, and power consumption. What struck me about this change in emphasis is that Intel now seems to be reading from an embedded processor vendor’s playbook. Take Intel’s perspective on parallelism. Mr. Otellini noted that Intel plans to move all of its x86 families to Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Respons—Lost in Translation

Go shopping for consumer electronics today and you’ll find products that use Intel processors, run Microsoft operating systems, and feature brand names like Dell and HP. It’s remarkable to see so many familiar names from the PC world showing up in consumer electronics-remarkable, but not surprising. The PC market once drove the digital revolution, but the PC market is now fairly mature and stable. Today, the action is in consumer electronics, where growth is strong and innovation abounds. Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—The Invincible Vendor

In recent years, ARM has come to dominate the market for licensable general-purpose processor (GPP) cores. Its main competitor, MIPS, has fallen into a distant second place and most other GPP core licensors are niche players. ARM has become so dominant that its competitors are unlikely to threaten its number-one position in the near future. At first glance, a similar trend seems to be developing in the market for digital signal processor (DSP) cores. Over the last few years, the Read more...