Processors

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...

StarCore LLC Offers Cores for License

Last month StarCore announced that it is offering two DSP cores for license. StarCore, originally formed in 1999 as a joint design center for Agere and Motorola, introduced the SC140 DSP core in 2000. The SC140 has since been used in chips from Motorola, but has not been available for license by other companies. Last year, StarCore made major changes to its business model (see DSP Insider, July 2002), and announced its intention to begin licensing DSP cores. StarCore is now licensing a Read more...

Renesas and SuperH Introduce SH-X at MPF

At the Microprocessor Forum last month, Renesas and SuperH debuted the latest processor in the SuperH family, the SH-X. The SH-X is a synthesizable 32-bit fixed-point CPU core that is object-code compatible with its 32-bit predecessors, which include the SH-3, SH3-DSP, and SH-4. Renesas expects to begin shipping SH-X-based chips in early 2004. It is not yet clear whether the core will be available for license; SuperH Inc., which is responsible for SuperH core licensing activities, did not 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...

Motorola Expands 56800E Lineup

Last month Motorola introduced the MC56F83xx family of control-oriented DSPs. The MC56F83xx is the second processor family based on the 56800E core. It succeeds the DSP56F8xx, which uses the older, slightly less efficient 56800 core. All six members of the MC56F83xx family operate at an instruction cycle rate of 60 MHz, making them about 50% faster than the DSP56F8xx. (The DSP56F8xx operates at clock rates of up to 80 MHz, but requires two clock cycles per instruction.) In addition, the Read more...

Analog Devices Announces Faster, Cheaper SHARC

On August 11, Analog Devices (ADI) introduced a new chip in its floating-point DSP line, the ADSP-21262. The ’21262 is based on ADI’s dual-MAC SIMD core, which ADI originally dubbed “Hammerhead.” ADI now refers to the ’21262 as a “third-generation SHARC,” presumably to emphasize the chip’s assembly-code compatibility with the earlier ADSP-2106x chip family and to differentiate these two families from ADI’s high-performance TigerSHARC chips. The ’21262 is currently sampling at 200 MHz and 1.2  Read more...

Embedded C Extensions Move Forward

Last month the ISO approved the final technical ballot for Embedded C, an extension to the C programming language that will ease signal-processing software development. After an additional round of editing, the ISO is expected to publish the Embedded C specification as a “technical report.” An ISO technical report is similar to a standard, but carries somewhat less authority. Embedded C extends the C programming language with support for fractional arithmetic, multiple address spaces, and I Read more...

Telairity Introduces Vector DSP Core

Licensing upstart Telairity introduced its high-performance DSP core, the TVP400, at last month’s HotChips conference. On the surface, the TVP400 resembles competing high-performance DSP cores. For example, the TVP400 is projected to achieve a worst-case clock speed of 420 MHz in a 0.13-micron process, which is comparable to the 300–400 MHz clock speeds achieved by competing DSP cores. The TVP400 also delivers a level of parallelism similar to that of its competitors. For example, the TVP400 Read more...

ARM Acquires Adelante’s A|RT Technology

On July 22nd, ARM Ltd. and Adelante Technologies announced that ARM has acquired Adelante’s Belgium-based A|RT coprocessor technology division. (The acquisition does not affect Adelante’s licensable DSP core division in the Netherlands.) The A|RT technology allows users to develop application-specific coprocessors to accelerate computationally intensive portions of applications. The resulting processor (or “data engine,” as ARM now refers to it) can be used alone or in combination with (for Read more...

Digital Media Processor Competition Heats Up

In the most recent announcement, Texas Instruments unveiled two new members of its ’C64x-based TMS320DM64x family. These two new processors, the ’DM640 and the ’DM641, are easily the least expensive ’C64x-based processors announced to date. The 600 MHz and 500 MHz versions of the ’DM641 will be priced at $37 and $32, respectively, and the 400 MHz ’DM640 will be priced at $20. (All prices quoted in this article are for 10,000-unit quantities.) The new ’DM64x chips will compete directly with Read more...