Last month Texas Instruments announced two new members of its ’C55xx family, the TMS320VC5501 and the TMS320VC5502. At a projected clock speed of 300 MHz, these new chips will bring the speed of the ’C55xx family—which currently tops out at 200 MHz—more in line with that of its main competitor, Analog Devices’ ADSP-2153x “Blackfin” family. BDTI’s analysis shows that at the projected clock speed of 300 MHz, the new ’C55xx chips will be about 15% slower on typical DSP tasks than the currently shipping 300 MHz ADSP-21535. BDTI’s analysis also shows that in terms of speed, a 300 MHz ’C55xx will lie halfway between the slowest and fastest ’C62xx family members (the 150 MHz ’C6211B and the 300 MHz ’C6202B, respectively). In contrast, a 200 MHz ’C55xx barely nudges past the slowest ’C62xx. (Benchmark scores for the processors discussed in this article are available at http://www.BDTI.com/Resources/BenchmarkResults/BDTImark2000.)
Despite their higher speeds, the new ’C55xx family members will cost much less than existing family members. For example, the 300 MHz ’C5501 will cost only one-third as much as the family’s current price leader, the 144 MHz ’C5509. The new chips achieve their low prices mainly by minimizing on-chip memory. For example, the ’C5501 contains only 48 KB of memory, compared to 256 KB on the ’C5509. Even considering the small on-chip memories, though, the new chips significantly improve the cost-performance ratio of TI’s low-cost offerings. For example, an 80 MHz ’C5402 costs as much as a 300 MHz ’C5501, but the ’C5501 offers roughly six times more speed and three times more on-chip memory than the aging ’C5402.
Looking beyond TI’s offerings, the ’C5502 bears a striking resemblance to ADI’s forthcoming ADSP-21532. Both chips will achieve similar signal-processing speeds; both will contain 80 KB of memory; both will be priced at $9.95 in 10,000-unit quantities; and both are expected to begin sampling in the first quarter of 2003.
According to TI, the new ’C55xx chips will be slightly more energy-efficient during normal operation than existing family members. However, the new chips will have somewhat higher idle-mode power consumption than existing ’C55xx family members. In addition, the new chips contain far less on-chip memory than existing ’C55xx family members, which means that applications using the new ’C55xx chips are more likely to require off-chip memory accesses. Idle-mode power consumption and off-chip memory accesses are two of the largest contributors to overall energy use in many applications, so comparing the energy-efficiency of the ’C5501 and ’C5502 to that of existing family members will require a careful, application-specific analysis.
According to TI, the ’C5502 will begin sampling in the first quarter of 2003. The 300 MHz version will be priced at $9.95. A 200 MHz version will also be available, priced at $7.95. The 300 MHz ’C5501 will begin sampling in the third quarter of 2003, and will be priced at $5.00. (All prices are for 10,000-unit quantities.)
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