InsideDSP — In-depth analysis and opinion

Freescale Announces New Multicore DSP

On May 16, 2006 Freescale announced the MSC8144, the first chip in its third generation of multi-core digital signal processors. The MSC8144 will feature four of StarCore’s latest SC3400 DSP cores operating at up to 1GHz. The rest of the chip, including memory systems and an I/O coprocessor, can operate at up to 400 MHz. The chip incorporates considerable on-chip memory, with 16 Kbyte instruction and 32 Kbyte data caches for each DSP, a 128 Kbyte L2 instruction cache shared by all DSPs, 512 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...

Case Study: Custom Benchmarks

Even for established system designs that have had success using a particular processor, rapidly evolving application requirements and frequently changing processor offerings may necessitate a reevaluation of which processor best meets the product’s needs. The outcome of such a reevaluation can have profound and lasting effects on the future of the product; for example, whether it is competitive in terms of performance, energy efficiency, and cost. Unfortunately, system designers often have Read more...

Morpho, picoChip Introduce Reconfigurable Solutions for Wireless

Morpho Technologies and picoChip both recently introduced reconfigurable-processor-based solutions targeting WiMAX applications. The Morpho solution, which targets terminal applications, is a combination of software and licensable hardware IP for use in custom chips. The Morpho hardware IP is based on the “MS2,” Morpho’s second-generation reconfigurable processor core. Morpho’s hardware IP also includes a coprocessor for Viterbi and turbo encoding and decoding, as well as an interface for Read more...

BDTI Releases C55x+ Benchmark Results

Today BDTI released the first independent benchmark results for the Texas Instruments C55x+ processor core. As its name implies, the C55x+ is based on the C55x architecture. Unlike the C55x, which is available in a variety of chips, the C55x+ will be available only in custom chips for wireless handsets. The first of these products is expected to sample in the first quarter of 2007, with full production expected in 1Q08. BDTI found that the C55x+ will achieve a BDTIsimMark2000™ score of 3160 Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Multiprocessors: Back to the Drawing Board

You’ve probably been hearing a lot of buzz lately about multiprocessor chips. Putting multiple processors on a chip isn’t a new idea, of course. But such chips are gaining significant momentum both in general-purpose computing applications and in embedded systems. In the world of embedded digital signal processing applications, multiprocessor chips are becoming attractive for an expanding range of systems—even cost-sensitive applications like consumer products. As a result, effective software Read more...

Tensilica Introduces Pre-Configured Cores

Last month Tensilica announced a new line of licensable processor cores called the Diamond Standard family.  The new family is based on Tensilica’s Xtensa family of licensable cores, but there is an important difference between the two families:  The Xtensa cores can be customized by licensees, but the Diamond cores cannot be customized.  Hence, the Diamond cores are essentially fixed, pre-configured versions of the Xtensa architecture. The Diamond family includes six family members Read more...

Case Study: Managing Offshore Software Development

Increasingly, processor vendors need to deliver extensive software libraries optimized for their processors. In the realm of signal processing applications, this software may include large libraries of building-block functions (filters, transforms, etc.), application modules (such as audio or video compression algorithms), and complete end-product reference designs. To meet these software needs, many processor vendors are attracted to offshore software development firms due to their low Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Bamboozling with Benchmarks, Part 2

In the February 2006 column, I listed four of the Top Ten ways in which processor benchmark results are commonly misused. This month I’ll cover the remaining six. If you rely on benchmark results, you’ll want to watch out for these. Comparing projected benchmark results for a chip that doesn’t yet exist to results for a chip that does. Mixing projected and actual benchmark results isn’t necessarily bad (and can be quite informative) but there are a couple of ways in which it can be 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...