In the most recent announcement, Texas Instruments unveiled two new members of its ’C64x-based TMS320DM64x family. These two new processors, the ’DM640 and the ’DM641, are easily the least expensive ’C64x-based processors announced to date. The 600 MHz and 500 MHz versions of the ’DM641 will be priced at $37 and $32, respectively, and the 400 MHz ’DM640 will be priced at $20. (All prices quoted in this article are for 10,000-unit quantities.)
The new ’DM64x chips will compete directly with the Analog Devices ADSP-BF53x family, which was announced in February. The similarities between two of the new chips, the 400 MHz ’DM640 and the 600 MHz ’BF533, are particularly striking. Both chips are priced at $20, and both have about 160 KB of on-chip memory. BDTI’s analysis shows that these competitors are also closely matched in terms of signal processing speed. The BDTImark2000™ score for the 400 MHz ’DM640 will be roughly the same as that of the 600 MHz ’BF533. (BDTImark2000™ scores for the ’C64x and ’BF53x families are available at http://www.BDTI.com/Resources/BenchmarkResults/BDTImark2000.)
Equator Technologies also recently announced its entry in the field of low-cost digital media processors, the BSP-16. The BSP-16 closely resembles its predecessor, the BSP-15, but offers higher speed, lower cost, and better energy efficiency than the BSP-15. Specifically, the clock speed rises from 400 MHz to 500 MHz even as the price drops from about $40 to about $20 and the power consumption drops by half. Most of these improvements flow from a process shrink: the BSP-15 is fabricated in a 0.15-micron process, while the BSP-16 is fabricated in a 0.13-micron process.
Equator claims that the 500 MHz BSP-16 is the “fastest video processor.” If so, the BSP-16 would have a price/performance advantage over its $20 competitors, the 600 MHz ’BF533 and the 400 MHz ’DM640. Unfortunately, it was not possible to verify Equator’s performance claim on the basis of publicly available information. However, it is notable that the BSP-16 contains only about half as much memory as the ’BF533 and the ’DM640. This smaller memory complement may limit the BSP-16’s performance in memory-hungry video applications.
Market analysts often point out that consumer electronics products must reach a “magic price point” (typically around $200) before they achieve widespread acceptance. Before these recent announcements, most digital media processors were too expensive for products that met this price cap. With this latest crop of processors, however, digital media processors may find more homes in high-volume consumer electronics.
All three new ’DM64x chips are expected to begin sampling in the fourth quarter of this year. Most versions of the ’BF53x, including the 600 MHz ’BF53x, are sampling now. The 500 MHz, 400 MHz, and 350 MHz versions of the BSP-16 are expected to begin sampling in the first quarter of 2004.
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