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This month:
DSP Group Announces One-Size-Fits-All CoreIn August, DSP Group announced CedarDSPCore, a family of licensable DSP cores that targets a wide range of applications. The CedarDSPCore family has two unusual features that lend it noteworthy flexibility. First, these cores use “computation clusters” rather than a traditional data path. Each “cluster” contains two multiply-accumulate units, an ALU, a shifter, and a register file. Licensees can choose from cores with one, two, or four clusters, depending on the performance requirements of the application. This scalability has two benefits: it allows the CedarDSPCore family to cover a fairly wide performance spectrum, and it facilitates software porting between family members. Scalability is rare among packaged processors but is increasingly common among licensable cores. Other licensors of scalable DSP architectures include 3DSP, LSI Logic, Siroyan, and Tensilica.
The CedarDSPCore family also covers a range of the native data sizes:
licensees can choose from
The ongoing shake-out in the core licensing business has made
licensees hesitant to embrace new cores. CedarDSPCore has an
advantage in this respect: according to a recent Gartner Dataquest
study, DSP Group generates about 70 percent of worldwide DSP core
licensing revenue. This may ease potential licensees' fears about the
long-term viability of CedarDSPCore. On the other hand, CedarDSPCore
is DSP Group's first new core in four years and newer players have
beaten it to market with high-performance cores. And CedarDSPCore is
incompatible with older DSP Group cores, so it cannot rely on an
established software base to give it leverage over the newcomers. To
succeed in today's market conditions, DSP Group needs world-class
tools and third-party support for its new core.
Notes From the TI Developer ConferenceAt last month's TI Developer Conference, TI convened a panel discussion featuring some of its top management. This panel addressed a broad range of topics such as TI's plans for its architectures and the changing competitive landscape. One of the most interesting topics discussed was the growing competition between Intel and TI. Intel has made no secret of its intent to wrest the market for handheld wireless devices from TI. Although TI holds the lead in cell phones, Intel has established itself as the one to beat in PDAs; what will happen as these markets converge? Alain Mutricy, Vice President of the Wireless Terminals Business Unit, argued that Intel is not yet a major competitor in the wireless space because it lacks TI's expertise in analog and RF circuitry, power management, and wireless system design. As Alain sees it, this gives TI a one- to two-year lead over Intel in wireless applications. Although Intel may lack some types of wireless expertise, it does have advantages in other key wireless technologies. For example, Intel is a leading provider of flash memory, whereas TI does not have its own line of flash memory. Doug Rasor, Vice President of Strategic Marketing, stated that TI has a significant performance advantage over Intel and complained that Intel is “running the PC strategy playbook [with a] focus on MHz.” Doug said that TI's customers report that TI's OMAP outperforms Intel's XScale despite the fact that XScale runs at twice the clock speed. Ironically, TI itself has a reputation for hanging performance claims on clock speed rather than on meaningful benchmarks. The real catch for TI is that handheld wireless devices—like PCs—are marketed not to benchmark-savvy engineers but to consumers who are easily impressed by big MHz numbers.
Greg Delagi, Vice President of TI's DSP Group, admitted that Intel's
resources are enviable. However, he pointed out that Intel must
expand its business model before it can challenge TI. Although Intel
seems to be committed to this very strategy, it is not clear that its
recent efforts have pushed the company forward. For example, the
cellular baseband chipsets Intel gained from its acquisition of DSP
Communications still use TI DSPs. And Intel's nearly two-year-old
collaboration with Analog Devices has yet to result in a single Intel
product announcement. In contrast, TI has successfully expanded its
product lines with its acquisitions of companies like analog chip
vendor Burr-Brown.
BDTI Case Study
This Month: Polishing Technical Marketing PresentationsThe quality of the marketing presentation and press briefing materials for a new DSP product or service is critical to convincing editors, prospective customers, partners, and investors that the product is attractive and viable. Presentations should combine clear, convincing technical information with a compelling marketing message—a difficult combination to achieve. Even accurate, convincing presentations can run into trouble if the audience asks difficult, unexpected questions. The best way to ensure that a presentation is accurate and effective is to test it on a knowledgeable, critical, and responsive audience. It is far better to uncover errors with a test audience than during a critical customer or press presentation. A test audience can also help ensure that the content is clear, relevant, and appropriate for the intended audience. Just as important, a test audience can help presenters gauge the appeal and impact of their pitch. After all, superb technical content serves no purpose if the audience loses interest a few minutes into the presentation. Through its “Sounding Board” service, BDTI offer the expertise of its analysts as a test audience for marketing presentations and press briefings on new DSP products and technology. BDTI's analysts have worked as design engineers and have spent years tracking the DSP industry. This makes them a shrewd and skeptical audience with a unique combination of technical expertise and business savvy. The Sounding Board service results in specific, detailed suggestions for achieving technical accuracy and clarity and focusing the marketing message for the target audience. In addition, the Sounding Board service can identify product advantages that the presenter may have overlooked. In one Sounding Board engagement, a licensable core vendor employed BDTI's services to refine its announcement of a new processor. BDTI hosted a preview of the announcement and the associated press materials. After a careful review, BDTI showed the vendor how to tie the processor's technical features to concrete advantages for end users. BDTI also pointed out major benefits of the processor that the vendor had underplayed. The vendor used these suggestions to create a more effective announcement anchored by a compelling value proposition for the new product.
Sounding Board sessions are available at BDTI's offices, via
conference call, and via Web conference. To learn how BDTI
can help you improve your presentations, contact Jeremy
Giddings (giddings@BDTI.com) or visit
http://www.BDTI.com/products/services_sounding.html.
Impulse Response, by Jeff Bier
FPGAs Crash the PartyThese days, digital signal processing enables everything from satellites to engine controllers. With their decades of experience, one would expect DSP processor vendors to have a lock on these applications. All they have to do is belly up to the all-you-can-eat buffet, right? Not if FPGA vendors can help it. Until fairly recently, FPGAs lacked the capacity to implement demanding DSP algorithms—and they were perceived as being too expensive and power-hungry to compete with DSPs anyway. One reason for these shortcomings was that FPGAs were slow to adopt new fabrication technologies. In recent years, however, FPGAs have vaulted forward to leading-edge fabrication technologies. And more recently, FPGA designers have added powerful DSP-oriented features like hard-wired multipliers to their devices. With these advances, FPGAs have turned the tables. BDTI recently completed a comparative study of FPGAs and DSPs for signal processing applications. This study put the long-standing assumptions about FPGAs to the test with a new communications receiver benchmark. The results of the study were stunning—a typical member of Altera's Stratix FPGA family can handle dozens of receiver channels, while high-end DSPs can't support even a single channel. And with prices for some FPGAs and DSPs in the same ballpark, FPGAs can wallop DSPs in terms of channels per dollar. But there's no free lunch. Because they are so flexible, it can be hard to determine the best way to map an application into an FPGA. This is particularly problematic because most DSP application developers are accustomed to software design flows, not the hardware design flows of an FPGA. And the DSP-oriented development infrastructure for FPGAs pales in comparison to the infrastructure for established DSPs. These complications create a huge disadvantage: BDTI's analysis suggests that optimizing a complex DSP function can take upwards of five times as long on an FPGA as on a DSP.
Five years ago, FPGAs couldn't compete with DSPs, but today they are
scooping up healthy servings of high-performance DSP application
markets. Although FPGAs are still too expensive to compete in many
applications, DSP vendors will have to shove harder to keep a hold of
their piece of the high-performance pie.
BDTI's “FPGAs for DSP” Report Shipping in SeptemberIn “FPGAs for DSP” you will learn about a new class of DSP-capable FPGAs and why FPGAs are a compelling solution for some DSP applications. The report assesses the latest DSP enhancements available in FPGAs from Altera and Xilinx and includes benchmark results of FPGA DSP performance.
“FPGAs for DSP” is scheduled for publication this month. For earliest
delivery, order your copy now. For an order form and more information
on this and other upcoming BDTI “Focus” reports, go to
http://www.BDTI.com/products/reports_focus.html.
New BDTI Seminar: “DSP Software Development”DSP software is different from other kinds of software—it makes unique demands on engineers and tools. BDTI's new seminar explains these demands and provides practical ways to meet them. The seminar will help improve DSP software performance, quality, and programmer productivity—for organizations new to DSP programming and experienced teams as well. The seminar emphasizes implementation topics such as tools, software architectures, numerics, coding, testing, optimization, and integration. For more information on “DSP Software Development” and other BDTI seminars, go to http://www.BDTI.com/products/services_training.html.
BDTI seminars are available for on-site presentation at your location.
New BDTI Communications Benchmark™The BDTI Communications Benchmark™ is a new application-specific benchmark that evaluates processor performance for communications applications. The BDTI Communications Benchmark models an OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) receiver, which is used in a variety of communications applications, such as fixed wireless systems. The benchmark specifies the algorithms for a single receiver channel. For infrastructure-oriented devices, benchmark implementers are tasked with implementing as many channels of the receiver as possible. For terminal-oriented devices, the goal is to implement a single channel with minimum cost and power consumption. This new benchmark can be applied to a range of processor technologies, including DSPs and FPGAs; The results for the Altera Stratix and Motorola's SC140-based MSC8101 are published in BDTI's new report “FPGAs for DSP.” To ensure fair comparisons, BDTI provides a specification detailing key benchmark parameters such as sample rates, filter lengths, and channel-code constraint lengths, and audits benchmark implementations before publication of results. Interested parties may license the BDTI Communications Benchmark for internal use or to create published results.
Contact Jeremy Giddings at giddings@BDTI.com for details.
BDTI's Free “Pocket Guide” Updated
BDTI's popular “Pocket Guide to Processors for DSP” has been updated
for 2002. The new version includes key facts on over 40 processors—
including both off-the-shelf-chips and licensable cores—from 13
leading vendors. To view the new Pocket Guide online, go to
http://www.BDTI.com/pocket/pocket.htm. Or to request a print copy,
register at http://www.BDTI.com/ecommerce/forms/addme.htm and
check the “Send me a Pocket Guide” box.
About BDTIBDTI is an independent source for DSP technology analysis and optimized DSP software. From rigorous technical analyses of processors for DSP, such as the “Inside” series of processor analyses, to highly regarded technology training classes, BDTI is the trusted independent source for reliable information on DSP technology.
For more information, visit our Web site at http://www.BDTI.com.
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