Processors

CEVA Announces Software-Based Multimedia Acceleration

This month DSP core licensor CEVA announced an unusual multimedia acceleration technology called MediaMagic. Instead of using specialized hardware accelerators, MediaMagic improves multimedia performance using a software technique CEVA calls a "pattern recognition engine." The pattern recognition engine maintains a table of previously-calculated results for algorithms such as the DCT. When multimedia application software invokes one of these algorithms, the pattern recognition engine Read more...

Case Study: Designing a Processor for DSP

As digital signal processing finds its way into an ever-broader range of applications, processors that were not designed with signal-processing applications in mind are often called upon to perform substantial signal-processing tasks. At the same time, DSP processors are taking on new types of tasks—for example, processors designed for audio applications often must handle video as well. Often, the best way for a processor vendor to meet these expanding, evolving signal processing requirements 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...

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: Signal Processing Hits the Road

Trends in Automotive Signal Processing Signal processing is pervasive in today’s vehicles, in applications ranging from engine controllers to entertainment systems. With annual automotive sales now at roughly 60 million units worldwide, it's clear that automotive applications represent a major market for signal processing technology. And as shown in Figure 1, the market for automotive signal processing is expected to grow at a healthy pace. In this article, we explore four automotive signal Read more...

Inside DSP on Audio: Digital Audio Technology Guide

The digital audio product Digital audio products are complex systems, comprised of numerous software and hardware subsystems. If you've already read "Anatomy of a Modern Digital Audio Product" you've seen many of these subsystems and how they work together. At the heart of the digital audio system is a microprocessor tasked with rendering audio. In this article we'll take a look at key processor options and processor selection criteria for consumer audio products. We'll examine the Read more...

Freescale, TI unveil new chip variants

The introduction of the DSP56321VF275 is evidence of Freescale’s continued support of the DSP563xx, an architecture that is now about nine years old. The DSP563xx family is one of the few non-VLIW DSPs still being actively supported and hasn’t seen many additions in recent years (the last new chip in the family was announced back in January 2003). The DSP56321VF275’s relatively high price tag is surprising given its modest speed, though the chip does include a large bank of on-chip SRAM (576 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...

New TI Chips and Tools Focus on Power

Texas Instruments has introduced three 'C55x chips and a variety of tools targeting power-sensitive applications. The new chips, the TMS320C5503, TMS320C5507, and TMS320C5509A, resemble existing 'C55x family members in most respects. The new chips are notable mainly for their low-power features, starting with their support for frequency and voltage scaling. With this feature, the chips can use lower supply voltages when operating at lower frequencies. Specifically, the chips require 1.6 V at 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...