Late last month Analog Devices announced four new members of its Blackfin processor family, the ADSP-BF534, ‘BF536 and ‘BF537 and ‘BF566. These new devices target network-connected applications that require both signal processing and control processing. Such applications include IP set-top boxes, networked media players, and automotive safety equipment.

Last month BDTI completed an analysis of the latest DSP cores from the three leading core licensors. Paging through the analysis, I noticed some striking similarities between these competing cores. All three cores use flexible, multi-issue architectures. All three use RISC-like instruction sets. And all three use a mix of 16- and 32-bit instructions.

On Monday Altera announced HardCopy II, the latest in its line of structured ASIC offerings. Like Altera’s previous structured ASICs, HardCopy II allows designers to migrate an FPGA design to a more efficient device once programmability is no longer needed. Just as the original HardCopy could only be used with Altera’s Stratix FPGAs, HardCopy II can only be used with Stratix II FPGAs.

I recently had occasion to pick up a copy of the first edition of BDTI’s Buyer’s Guide to DSP Processors, which was published 11 years ago. Flipping through the pages reminded me of how far DSP processors have come since 1994, when 3.0 volts was “low-voltage,” 50 MHz was “impressive speed,” and a 20 MHz Analog Devices ADSP-2115 sold for $21.

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.

LSI Logic recently added two new processors, the ZSP200 and the ZSP540, to its ZSP family of superscalar DSP cores. With the addition of these cores, the ZSP family has become the largest family of code-compatible DSP cores available today. As with existing family members—the ZSP400, ZSP500, and ZSP600—the names of the new cores reflect their levels of parallelism. The ZSP200 offers less parallelism than the ZSP400, while the ZSP540 falls between the ZSP500 and ZSP600 in terms of parallelism.