Tools

MathWorks' HDL Coder and Verifier: High-Level Synthesis Expands to MATLAB Users

In one of last month's InsideDSP articles, I wrote: As FPGAs have evolved, the means by which engineers create FPGA designs have also evolved. In particular, design techniques employing increasingly higher levels of abstraction have been required to address the increasing chip capabilities. Initial FPGA design flows were schematic-based. These later gave way to HDLs (hardware description languages) such as VHDL and Verilog. And more recently, C-language-based high-level synthesis has Read more...

Xilinx's Vivado: An "All-Programmable" Toolset for Today and Tomorrow

Over the past 25 years, programmable logic devices have grown in capacity and capability through lithography advancements and the integration of specialized functional blocks. First were dedicated memory arrays derived from the same SRAM used to build logic cells. Next came dedicated-function logic blocks such as multiply-accumulate units (MACs), to accelerate digital signal processing and other math-intensive algorithms, along with the integration of high-performance transceivers to speed Read more...

Case Study: Maximizing DSP Software Performance on ARM Processors

A decade ago, ARM processors were mainly found in cell phones, disk drives, and few other specialized applications. These days, they seem to be everywhere, from microcontrollers to tablet PCs. During this same time period, digital signal processing (DSP) tasks such as multimedia and communications functions have also become increasingly common in a wide range of systems. Given these two trends, it's no surprise that there's been a big uptick in products using ARM processors to implement digital Read more...

Texas Instruments Announcements Span the Processor Spectrum

Back in November 2010 at Electronica in Munich, Germany, Texas Instruments unveiled the TMS320C66x DSP family, then consisting of a quad-core communications SoC (the TMS320C6670) along with three pin-compatible conventional DSPs in two-, four- and eight-core variants (the TMS320C6672, TMS320C6674 and TMS320C6678), all based on the company's earlier-unveiled KeyStone architecture. At that same time, TI trumpeted its products' fixed- and floating-point performance results on the BDTI DSP Kernel Read more...

BDTI Study Validates FPGA Floating-Point Digital Signal Processing Viability, Altera Design Toolset Capabilities

In design situations where optimum performance and/or power consumption is required, implementing digital signal processing functions in dedicated hardware versus software becomes an attractive proposition. A FPGA is a particularly compelling silicon platform for realizing this aspiration, because it conceptually combines the inherent hardware attributes of an ASIC with the flexibility and time-to-market advantages of the software alternative running on a CPU, GPU or DSP. As such, FPGAs are Read more...

Microsoft Kinect SDK Released, Robotics Developer Studio Kit Enhanced

Embedded vision is a clear "poster child" for digital signal processing silicon and software technology, beginning with the algorithms employed in image capture (including exposure, color balance, lens aberration correction, etc) through edge detection and pattern matching, and extending all the way to frame analysis and response (motion tracking, for example). And Microsoft's Kinect peripheral for the Xbox 360 game console, which sold 10 million units in its first five months on the market ( Read more...

Embedded Vision Alliance Forms to Catalyze Practical Applications of Computer Vision

A new industry association, the Embedded Vision Alliance, is being formed to help embedded system designers harness computer vision in their products.  BDTI, which has initiated the partnership, believes that computer vision—extracting meaning from images and video—is poised to proliferate into a wide range of applications in the next few years. The success of the Microsoft Kinect—which has become the fastest-selling consumer electronics device in history, selling 10 million units in its first Read more...

MathWorks Extends Code-Generation Capabilities Across its Tool Portfolio

The MathWorks—maker of MATLAB modeling environment—has launched a trio of new code-generation tools called MATLAB Coder, Simulink Coder, and Embedded Coder. With these automatic code-generation products, The MathWorks aims to eliminate the need for development teams to maintain parallel development efforts—modeling algorithms in MATLAB, for instance, while separately coding in C or C++ for embedded implementation. MATLAB users will get direct code-generation capability for the first time Read more...

Xilinx Buys AutoESL, Securing High-Level Synthesis Capabilities

Xilinx has acquired high-level synthesis start-up AutoESL Design Technologies, bringing the AutoPilot high-level-synthesis tool in-house. AutoPilot accepts a C, C++, or SystemC description of the functionality of an algorithm or task and generates a register-transfer-level (RTL) implementation in Verilog or VHDL.  The RTL implementation is then processed through the traditional FPGA RTL logic synthesis, place-and-route, and verification tool flow. Like other high-level synthesis tools, Read more...

Oxford Digital Offers Small Audio DSP Core With Graphical Programming

Even if you are a DSP industry insider, you may not have heard of UK-based Oxford Digital. Since its founding in 2006, the company has established itself primarily as a provider of design consulting services for audio applications. Through its consulting work, Oxford Digital has created a small configurable DSP core called TinyCore and an associated graphical programming environment.  With these assets in hand, Oxford Digital now aims to make its mark licensing silicon intellectual property Read more...