Opinion

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Multiprocessor Migraines?

Once upon a time, most signal processing applications were powered by single-processor chips. Today, though, there is an increasing trend towards using complex, heterogeneous multiprocessor chips. One such chip is Texas Instruments’ recently announced OMAP 2, which contains a microprocessor core, a DSP core, and multiple application-specific coprocessors. The primary motivation for this shift is not processing speed; the fastest uniprocessor DSPs and general-purpose microprocessors are fast Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Stuck in the Past

Vendors announcing new signal-processing chips tend to brag about the clock speed of the processor core, just as they did ten years ago. “Look at our hot new processor!” they proclaim. “It’s got lots and lots of Hertz!” But in embedded applications—just as in PC applications—comparing chip performance solely on the basis of core clock speeds never tells the whole story. In fact, it can be downright misleading. The performance of today’s highly integrated chips isn’t just a function of the Read more...

Inside DSP on Audio: Ubiquitous Digital Audio

In the average American home today you will probably find ten or twenty separate digital clocks. There is one in your computer, of course, but there's probably also one on the stove, one on the VCR, one on the radio, one on your coffee machine, one on your microwave oven—your home is probably infested with them. There's a good reason for this. For products that already include an embedded processor, the addition of clock functionality comes almost for free. Just add an LCD display and a Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Floating-Point DSPs Catch the Audio Wave

As we approach year-end, it seems fitting to look back at developments and trends in DSP processors. And it’s an opportune time to do so, since my colleagues and I just completed the latest iteration of our exhaustive (and exhausting) study of leading DSPs. It has been three years since we published the previous edition, and in reviewing the new version I am struck by one of the key changes in our industry. Back in 2000, telecom was the DSP killer app. Most DSP architectural innovations Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Chips: You Can’t Have Just One

At last month’s Microprocessor Forum, Sun Microsystems CTO Greg Papadopoulos predicted that microprocessors as we know them will disappear by 2010. In his view, microprocessors will continue to absorb surrounding chips until the entire computer is contained in a single chip. This prediction reminded me of claims by Texas Instruments that cell phones will soon contain nothing more than a single chip and a handful of passive components. There is no denying the trend towards higher integration Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Your Mileage May Vary

With gasoline prices wildly fluctuating in the United States, car buyers are paying increased attention to fuel efficiency. And fuel efficiency seems easy to determine: new cars come plastered with enormous stickers proclaiming their EPA-rated fuel efficiency. However, environmentalists are quick to point out that these EPA ratings are only loosely related to real-world fuel efficiency. The EPA admits as much, adding small print that reads “your mileage may vary.” Fuel efficiency is tough Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Watch Your Back

Think you know who your competitors are? You’d better watch your back, because changes in end products are forcing processor vendors and equipment manufacturers to face unfamiliar new foes. Convergence is the key trend causing new rivalries to arise. One of the most obvious examples of convergence is the cell phone. Cell phones are acquiring the functionality of PDAs, digital still cameras, and digital audio players. (Next year they’ll probably incorporate can openers and vacuum cleaners.) Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—The Second Wave

The late 1990s saw a wave of start-ups and big-company spin-offs offering novel processor architectures for DSP applications. While many of these companies fielded competent architectures, most never had a chance of success. Even when the industry was enjoying boom times, there just weren’t enough customers starting new chip and system designs to sustain a dozen new processor architectures alongside the many entrenched competitors. Unfortunately for the upstart vendors, their prospective Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—The Consumer Audio Renaissance

Consumer audio products have always held a special fascination for me. Indeed, it was my childhood interest in audio gear that largely motivated my pursuit of an engineering career. But during most of my career, mainstream consumer audio technology has been pretty staid territory, with little in the way of exciting technology and few compelling new products. More recently, though, I’ve been delighted to see what I believe is the beginning of a revolution in consumer audio equipment. The Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—FUBU or FUBAR?

A 1995 survey found that 17% of VCR clocks were flashing “12:00.” This fact may make a great joke for a stand-up comedian, but it highlights a serious problem for consumer electronics companies: user interfaces are rarely user-friendly. While most people can live with a flashing VCR clock, poor interfaces are slowing the acceptance of advanced consumer electronics. I recently observed some dramatic examples of the perils of bad user interfaces. A few weeks ago I visited a retirement home Read more...