InsideDSP — In-depth analysis and opinion

TI Offers OMAP3 Application Processors to the Mass Market

Texas Instruments yesterday introduced four new members of its OMAP3 family of high-end application processors, and announced that these chips will be offered broadly as part of TI’s “catalog” product line. Earlier members of the OMAP3 family were available only to selected customers of TI’s Wireless Terminal Business Unit (WTBU), typically big-name cell phone manufacturers with very high volumes. The new catalog parts are the OMAP3503, OMAP3515, OMAP3525, and OMAP3530. Like the original Read more...

Ambric’s Video Accelerator Card Tackles HD H.264

At Macworld last month, Ambric announced that it is using its massively parallel processor architecture as the basis for PC plug-in video accelerator boards. The new video platform is based on Ambric’s AM2045 programmable processor chip and includes off-the-shelf video codec software written by video codec house MainConcept (which was acquired by DivX late last year). OEMs can buy a PCI Express-based reference board from Ambric and add their own codecs or pre-/post-processing software, then Read more...

Case Study: Change or Be Changed: Good Business Decisions Require Good Information

The electronics industry has long been a dynamic one, but never as dynamic as it is today. Private equity investors now own some of the largest semiconductor companies and are pushing for improved efficiencies. Many, if not most, of the largest chip companies are making significant adjustments in their strategies. And, as usual, changes in technology—often driven by innovative start-ups—threaten to disrupt the status quo. In this dynamic environment, industry executives and investors are Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—How to Make Money in Video IP

Digital video is almost everywhere. And where it isn’t now, it soon will be.  As a result, the market for digital video intellectual property components—hardware, software, you name it—is wide open, with lots of opportunities for money-making.  And there are roughly five buzillion vendors jockeying for position within a highly fragmented field. You have companies like ARC and Tensilica offering programmable (and sometimes customizable) hardware-plus-software silicon IP solutions for chip Read more...

VeriSilicon’s New Silicon IP Solution for HD Audio

VeriSilicon has released a licenseable DSP core, the ZSP800, and an associated development platform, VZ.AudioHD, optimized for “HD” audio applications. The term “high definition audio” can mean different things to different people.  For example,  in 2004 Intel introduced “high definition audio” technology aimed at PCs. For Verisilicon, “HD audio” refers to the audio requirements assocaited with digital high-definition TV (HDTV), high-definition optical media (Blu-ray and HD DVD), and games Read more...

Catalytic Acquires Celoxica’s C-to-FPGA Tools

Earlier this month, Catalytic announced that it had acquired Celoxica’s electronic system level (ESL) business. Catalytic is a start-up company that sells a MATLAB-to-C translation tool used to accelerate simulation and implementation of signal processing algorithms. Celoxica, on the other hand, developed a C-to-FPGA translation tool for creating hardware implementations of computationally demanding algorithms.  Put the two tools together, and what do you get? Potentially, you get seamless Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response: Moore’s Law Alive and Well—But Penalties Get Stiffer

The breathtaking advances in digital integrated circuits over the past 40 years—with current chips topping one billion transistors—have been possible in large part because designers and users have been able to ignore a number of “second-order” aspects of circuit behavior.  Unfortunately, as process geometries continue to shrink, some of those second-order effects have been promoted to first-order headaches. Take leakage current. It used to be one of those second-order effects that most Read more...

Case Study: Multi-Tiered Software Optimization

To obtain the most efficient code, DSP software must be optimized at four distinct levels. First, the software architecture and data flow must be designed to take maximum advantage of the processor’s resources. Second, the appropriate data types must be selected—too big and you’re wasting resources, too small and your system may not work. Third, the software must be optimized at the algorithm level—perhaps by combining multiple algorithms into a single processing step, or by substituting one Read more...

Behind the scenes: Dolby’s acquisition of Coding Technologies

Dolby, based in San Francisco, CA, has acquired audio compression specialist Coding Technologies. Dolby is well-known for its AC-3 audio compression algorithm (also known as Dolby Digital), used worldwide in cinema sound and more recently accepted for audio for digital television in North America.  Coding Technologies focuses on audio compression for mobile, digital broadcasting and Internet markets worldwide.  Coding Technologies has developed Spectral Band Replication and other technologies Read more...

Microchip Switches to MIPS Core for PIC32

Last month, Microchip announced a new 32-bit microcontroller chip family, the PIC32. With this family, Microchip—a long-time player in 8- and 16-bit microcontrollers—is going after the 32-bit microcontroller market, and making a big change in architecture.   Unlike Microchip’s earlier chips, which were based on the company’s proprietary processor architecture, the new family is based on the MIPS M4K core.  PIC32 chips, which are currently sampling, will operate at up to 72 MHz, with pricing Read more...