Opinion

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—C-ing the Future of Hardware Design

At one time, most DSP applications were powered either by instruction-set processors or by application-specific fixed-function chips. There was a clear distinction between these two types of solutions and clear differences in the associated design methodologies: processors required software development, while ASICs required hardware design. Today, the line between hardware and software has been blurred, particularly with flexible architectures that combine instruction-set processors with Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Education Fuels Technological Competitiveness

In tough times, technology companies often curtail research and development of new technologies and products. Too often, such cutbacks are penny-wise and pound-foolish: while they reduce expenses in the short term, they may also seriously damage a company's ability to compete in the long term. Sadly, this kind of shortsightedness can also be seen in the United States' education funding policies. In response to shortfalls caused by the current downturn, states are slashing education spending Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—DSPs—A Dying Breed?

At the Microprocessor Forum in October, ARM unveiled the next version of its instruction set, ARMv6, which all future ARM cores will support. The ARMv6 instruction set is the first from ARM to include extensive DSP-oriented instructions. Particularly interesting is the inclusion of a sum-of-absolute-differences instruction, a rather specialized instruction that is useful mainly for video compression algorithms. Historically, ARM has found success in low-cost, high-volume applications by Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Better Late than Never?

After Odysseus left to fight in the Trojan War, the ever-patient Penelope waited nineteen years for his return. Delayed by a few snags on the way back, he did eventually make it home, albeit much later than expected. This phenomenon is not unknown in world of microprocessors, in which new processors are often late—sometimes very late. This is a serious problem, particularly among high performance chips. Moreover, in addition to being late, these chips are often not up to spec when they Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Talkin' Trash

It used to be that DSP was a niche technology because only cost-insensitive applications could afford the hardware required for serious real-time signal processing. Over time, however, the prices of DSP-capable processors and ASICs have dropped to the point that DSP is now used in many consumer products, cell phones most prominent among these. But have we begun to get carried away? Two companies, Hop-On Wireless and Dieceland Technologies, plan to release disposable cell phones next month. Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Broadband: Getting Nowhere Fast

In an obscure corner of 3COM's Web site is an epitaph; a barren savannah landscape with a lone tree in the background frames the phrase "End of Life." The death in question was not that of a zebra or wildebeest—in these modern technological proving grounds it was the innovative Kerbango Internet Radio that was recently deemed unfit. Kerbango is not alone. While streaming media technology has been refined to the point that dozens of great consumer applications are now possible, these Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Core Values

Typical CPUs used to be built with hundreds of chips, each containing a few simple logic gates. Nobody uses these logic gate chips anymore, and as IC manufacturing technology improved (and Moore's Law predicted), processors shrank in size to the point that today they occupy only a small portion of a chip. Thus it is now possible to integrate a multitude of other elements-memories, coprocessors, algorithm accelerators, specialized peripherals-on a single chip with a DSP or MCU processor core Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Hetero-genius Designs for DSP

Business guru Michael Porter once observed that the U.S. railroads failed because they took too narrow a view of their business. They thought their business was just the railroads—in fact it was transportation. DSP processor vendors are now at the crossroads of what could be a similar situation. If they take the narrow view that their business is just DSPs, they might go the way of the U.S. rail system. On the other hand, if they see themselves as DSP applications solution providers— where Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—And Then There Were None

Tasking, one of the last independent providers of DSP software development tools, announced last month that it has been acquired. Over the past few years many of Tasking's competitors have also been acquired—several by major DSP processor vendors; Texas Instruments, Motorola, and Analog Devices have each acquired development tool specialists. Such acquisitions highlight how important tools have become to DSP system developers. In the early days of embedded DSP software, programs were Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Caveat Emptor

In the ancient Near East the number 40 was a literary device symbolizing "an impressively large number," not a precise quantity. "It rained for 40 days and 40 nights," "they wandered in the desert for 40 years,"—the examples are countless. In the modern world of DSP processors, the term "10X" has taken on a similar function. Vendor claims that a processor is, e.g., "10X faster than existing DSPs," often don't mean that the processor is really 10 times faster—only that it is "much faster." Read more...