Processors

Analog Devices Introduces $5 Floating-Point DSP

This month Analog Devices introduced the ADSP-21375, the newest member of its SHARC floating-point DSP family. The new chip will operate at 266 MHz and be priced at $5 in high volumes  ($7.95 in 10K quantities). It will target consumer audio applications and cost-sensitive application areas traditionally dominated by low cost fixed-point DSPs, including industrial, automotive, medical and instrumentation applications. The ‘21375 will be pin-compatible with the existing ADSP-21367/8/9 SHARC Read more...

Latest StarCore Architecture Promises More Speed

Last week StarCore unveiled the first details of its next-generation DSP core family, the SC3000. The most notable new feature is the family’s high clock rate: According to StarCore, SC3000 cores will achieve a clock rate of 1 GHz in a high-performance 90 nm process. In comparison, StarCore claims that SC2000 cores can achieve clock rates of about 600 MHz under the same conditions. (The clock speeds quoted in this article assume nominal silicon under worst-case voltage and temperature Read more...

ARC Previews Powerful Media Extensions

Last week processor core licensor ARC introduced a multimedia subsystem for its ARC 700 family of configurable cores. This multimedia subsystem extends the ARC 700 CPU with new instructions, a powerful SIMD engine, memory, a DMA controller, and video decoding software. The SIMD engine is the most notable feature of this subsystem. This engine features a 128-bit-wide data path that can perform up to sixteen 8-bit operations, eight 16-bit operations or four 32-bit operations per cycle. In Read more...

ARM Takes New Direction With Latest Core

Last week ARM announced its latest processor core, the Cortex-A8. The Cortex-A8 is the highest-performance ARM processor to date, and it differs in many ways from older ARM cores. Perhaps the most obvious difference is the name: Instead of the traditional naming scheme (ARM7, ARM9, ARM11, etc.), the processor uses the new “Cortex” brand. The “A” in the name indicates that the Cortex-A8 is an “application” processor targeting systems that require a full-featured OS like Linux. Target markets Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Video Processors: Why the Rush?

In the last year or so I have noticed an impressive surge in new processors targeting digital video applications. Hardly a month goes by without a vendor announcing that it has the ultimate video processor. Countless new companies have sprung up to address this hot market, and established processor vendors are scrambling to re-spin their offerings for digital video. Why is everyone suddenly so eager to market a digital video processor? One reason is that digital video products show great Read more...

TI Announces “DaVinci” Video Technology

This month Texas Instruments announced that it will offer a new line of products for implementing digital video applications. TI’s “DaVinci Digital Video Technology” encompasses new video-oriented chips, software, and tools, all of which are intended to be used together to help companies quickly develop new video products. Thus far, only the DaVinci brand has been introduced; TI expects to announce specific DaVinci products before the end of the year. The forthcoming DaVinci chips will Read more...

MIPS Buys FS2, Gets Cozy With Virage

On September 6, core licensor MIPS made two announcements that promise to make life easier for MIPS licensees. In the first of these announcements, MIPS revealed that it had acquired FS2, a company specializing in debugging technology. FS2 is best known for its "On-Chip Instrumentation" (OCI) embedded trace modules. FS2's embedded trace modules are included as part of some licensable cores; these trace modules are also available as a licensable option for some cores. FS2 already offers Read more...

CEVA Introduces Audio Solution

In June DSP core licensor CEVA announced CEVA-Audio, a licensable audio platform targeting high-volume audio applications such as portable audio players and home entertainment equipment. The CEVA-Audio platform is based on CEVA’s recently announced CEVA-TeakLite-II core. For an overview of the CEVA-TeakLite-II, see the January 2005 edition of Inside DSP. The platform also includes a memory subsystem and peripherals. The size of the memory is configurable, and includes up to 8 Kbytes of Read more...

Telairity Chip Targets High-Definition Video Encoding

Today fabless chip startup Telairity introduced its first chip, the T1P2000. The chip targets high-definition H.264 video encoding in applications such as broadcast encoders, video servers, and video authoring systems. The T1P2000 is based on the Telairity TVP400 processor core. The computational demands of high-definition H.264 encoding are enormous, and the architecture of the T1P2000 reflects these tough demands. The T1P2000 includes five Telairity TVP400 processor cores as well as a Read more...

Case Study–Benchmarks for Tools, Software Libraries, and More

System developers often rely on processor benchmarks to gauge system performance. However, the processor is just one of many components that determines overall performance. Fully understanding system performance requires careful analysis of many other elements, such as code-generation tools and third-party software libraries. Unfortunately, a host of factors can confound attempts to analyze these components. For example, it is difficult to prevent variations in programmer skill and style from Read more...