Tools

PicoChip: Defying the Odds

Editor’s Note: The past year or so has brought a wave of parallel-processor start-ups pursuing digital signal processing applications.  But what about the previous wave?  In the late 1990s and into 2001, a large number of start-ups emerged with unique processor architectures targeting applications like wireless infrastructure.  The vast majority of these, such as Chameleon, Morphics, and Quicksilver, are long gone.  PicoChip, founded in 2000, is an interesting exception.  In this article, Read more...

Texas Instruments Announces DaVinci Family Extensions

Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) this week announced four new “DaVinci”-branded processors: the TMS320DM6437, TMS320DM6435, TMS320DM6433 and TMS320DM6431. Priced at $10-23, the media processors target video applications in the car and the home. (All prices in this article are for 10,000 unit quantities.) The new devices are architecturally similar to the first DaVinci chips, the ‘DM6446 and ‘DM6443. These chips and the new ‘DM643x devices both feature a ‘C64x+ core and varying assortments of Read more...

Case Study: Getting Good Feedback to Improve Products

To improve their products, technology providers need detailed, thoughtful feedback from users of their technology. Unfortunately, this feedback is often difficult to obtain. Typical users aren’t very motivated to provide detailed feedback; they’re interested in getting their product finished. When they run into a problem, they find the most expedient work-around and move on. They don’t have time to fully explore, document, and report on the problems that hinder their productivity, or to share 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...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Brainy FPGA Tools?

I’m starting to wonder if executives at FPGA companies are having conversations like those of the cartoon characters in “Pinky and the Brain”: Pinky: “Gee, Brain, what are we going to do today?” Brain: “The same thing we do every day, Pinky—try to take over the world!” Clearly FPGA vendors are no longer content to provide a little glue logic here and there. A few years ago they started pushing hard into the multi-billion-dollar DSP space, and now (as I wrote in the April 2006 Impulse Read more...

TI to Sell Software to the Mass Market

This month Texas Instruments announced that it will begin selling multimedia software to the mass market.  TI already offers some software, but this software is usually available only to select customers.  In contrast, the new multimedia software will be widely available. The new multimedia software will include most of the popular audio, video, imaging, and speech codecs.  The software will be available for both the ‘C64x and the ‘C64x+ platforms, including chips that use the “DaVinci” Read more...

TI Launches First “DaVinci” Video Processors

Last week TI unveiled its first “DaVinci”-branded processors, the TMS320DM6443 and the TMS320DM6446. These processors target home entertainment, surveillance, and other video applications. The two chips are similar in many respects. Each chip contains a 300 MHz ARM9E general-purpose processor core, a 600 MHz ‘C64x+ DSP core, and connectivity peripherals such as USB and Ethernet ports. The differences between the chips reflect the fact that the ‘DM6446 targets both video encoding and Read more...

Case Study: Creating Top-Notch Tools for Signal Processing

Signal processing is becoming important in an increasingly broad range of embedded systems. As signal processing workloads become more widespread, these workloads are increasingly assigned to embedded processors that were not designed with signal processing in mind. Because these processors were not designed for signal processing tasks, the processors’ software development tools often lack critical features needed for signal processing software development. The tool features needed for signal 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...

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...