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This month:
ARM Acquires Adelante’s A|RT TechnologyOn July 22nd, ARM Ltd. and Adelante Technologies announced that ARM has acquired Adelante’s Belgium-based A|RT coprocessor technology division. (The acquisition does not affect Adelante’s licensable DSP core division in the Netherlands.) The A|RT technology allows users to develop application-specific coprocessors to accelerate computationally intensive portions of applications. The resulting processor (or “data engine,” as ARM now refers to it) can be used alone or in combination with (for example) an ARM core and/or a general-purpose DSP. Historically, the A|RT tool has focused on digital signal processing application areas such as telecom and multimedia. The A|RT tool has been offered commercially under various names (and by several companies) for a number of years, but it has never found widespread market acceptance. ARM hopes that its own credibility in the market will boost interest and confidence in A|RT technology and help the tool to find the foothold that has proven elusive so far. In fact, far from seeing the tool’s long and unspectacular history as a deterrent, ARM says that the tool’s maturity was a key motivation for the acquisition. In previous incarnations, A|RT technology was offered as a tool to build custom application-specific coprocessors from scratch. This methodology isn’t what will be offered to ARM’s customers, however. Instead, they will be able to license an ARM-supplied coprocessor “template architecture” and tools to enable architectural customization. In addition, ARM plans to offer off-the-shelf data engines, which will include standard signal processing functions such as Viterbi decoders. These engines are programmable, but not customizable.
It is interesting that ARM chose to acquire a technology for providing
customizable DSP-oriented cores rather than acquiring one of the many
general-purpose DSP core companies that are struggling in the market.
ARM states that it believes that the architectural customizability
provided by the A|RT tool is a key advantage for current and future
DSP-oriented applications, because it offers many of the benefits of a
hardwired solution (lower power, smaller die size, etc.) while still
allowing software-level modifications. ARM expects the A|RT
technology to be used by its licensees to target a wide spectrum of
signal-processing-intensive applications, such as 3G baseband modems,
wireless LANs, and imaging.
Digital Media Processor Competition Heats UpDuring the last few months, several vendors have announced low-cost, high-speed digital media processors. These processors target consumer media products like set-top boxes, personal video recorders (PVRs), and digital media servers. 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/bdtimark/BDTImark2000.htm.) 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.
BDTI Case Study
This month: Benchmarks for Tools, Software Libraries, and MoreSystem developers often rely on processor benchmarks to gauge system performance. However, the processor is just one of many components that determines overall performance. Fully understanding system performance requires careful analysis of many other elements, such as code-generation tools and third-party software libraries. Unfortunately, a host of factors can confound attempts to analyze these components. For example, it is difficult to prevent variations in programmer skill and style from skewing an analysis of code-generation tools. In addition, a system developer may not have time to analyze all of the available options. And, although processor benchmarks are available for a wide range of devices, it may be difficult to find reliable benchmark data for code-generation tools and other key technologies. This lack of competitive data greatly increases the effort required to evaluate these key system components. Although BDTI is best known for its processor benchmarking activities, BDTI also helps clients benchmark, evaluate, and select other key technologies for signal processing applications. These technologies include code-generation tools, off-the-shelf software libraries, and algorithms. BDTI’s extensive hands-on development expertise and its decade-long experience in technology evaluation enable it to analyze many types of technology efficiently and accurately. For example, BDTI has performed analyses of block-diagram-based code-generation tools for multiple clients. In these projects, BDTI employed a carefully designed methodology to evaluate the efficiency of the generated software. BDTI also investigated other critical attributes of the tools, such as ease of use and breadth and quality of supplied component libraries.
To learn how BDTI can help you analyze tools, algorithms, and other
key system components, contact Jeremy Giddings at +1 510 665 1600 or
giddings@BDTI.com.
Impulse Response, by Jeff Bier
The Second WaveThe late 1990s saw a wave of start-ups and big-company spin-offs offering novel processor architectures for DSP applications. While many of these companies fielded competent architectures, most never had a chance of success. Even when the industry was enjoying boom times, there just weren’t enough customers starting new chip and system designs to sustain a dozen new processor architectures alongside the many entrenched competitors. Unfortunately for the upstart vendors, their prospective customers realized that most of the vendors wouldn’t survive in this overcrowded marketplace. That made customers wary of committing to new architectures. Nobody wants to get halfway into a three-year product development cycle only to have the processor vendor go belly-up. These fears hurt the sales of even the best-positioned new companies. Although the recent industry downturn made matters worse for upstart vendors, it may have been just what the doctor ordered. Many of the weaker players were swept away, opening up market share for the remaining vendors. Fewer competitors meant less expectation of further consolidation, giving customers more confidence in the vendors that had survived. And the layoffs that swept through the industry left many chip and system companies more receptive to buying technology rather than inventing everything themselves. But unfortunately for the surviving processor vendors, it appears that the market is again becoming overcrowded. Recent months have seen a torrent of announcements and pre-announcement rumblings from a second wave of processor start-ups. For the survivors of the last crash, the emergence of these new vendors is an unwelcome development. And given recent history, the arrival of this second wave comes as a real surprise. Did the entrepreneurs behind these new ventures just wake up from a five-year nap, unaware of the fate of their predecessors? Or have they carefully studied the pitfalls that consumed the earlier start-ups, and developed superior strategies? One of the most common pitfalls that plagued the earlier wave of upstarts was an overemphasis on architecture. As industry events have demonstrated many times, a superior processor architecture is no guarantee of success. Yet today, if you ask the typical start-up processor vendor what will propel them to success, the usual answer is, in effect, “our unique, sophisticated, and elegant architecture.”
It’s painful to watch processor vendors repeat mistakes. Let’s hope,
for the sake of the entire industry, that both the upstarts and the
battle-scarred survivors will learn from recent history.
BDTI Releases BDTIsimMark2000™ for ADI’s Newest TigerSHARCBDTI has just released a BDTIsimMark2000™ score for Analog Devices’ ADSP-TS201 TigerSHARC processor. This score, which provides a single-number representation of signal-processing performance, is based on recent benchmarking using the BDTI Benchmarks™. For this and other scores, go to http://www.BDTI.com/bdtimark/BDTImark2000.htm.
The BDTIsimMark2000™ and BDTImark2000™ are summary measures of
DSP speed distilled from a suite of DSP benchmarks developed and
independently verified by BDTI.
BDTI Welcomes Charter Members of Benchmark Partner Program(SM)BDTI is pleased to welcome as charter members of the BDTI Benchmark Partner Program four industry leaders in DSP: Analog Devices, LSI Logic, Renesas Technology America, and Texas Instruments. The full text of BDTI’s press release may be seen at http://www.BDTI.com/articles/030801BPP_PR.pdf. BDTI Benchmark Program members are shown at http://www.BDTI.com/products/services_benchmark_partners.html.
For information on the BDTI Benchmark Partner Program, visit BDTI’s
Web site at http://www.BDTI.com/partner or contact Jeremy Giddings at
giddings@BDTI.com.
BDTI Workshops at the 2003 Communications Design ConferenceWondering which processors are best for mobile multimedia applications? Need to know whether you should use an FPGA or a DSP in your communication system? Join BDTI for two workshops at CDC in San Jose, September 30 to October 2, and find out. BDTI’s CDC 2003 workshops are:
Top About BDTIBDTI is an independent source for DSP technology analysis and optimized DSP software development services. From rigorous technical analyses of processors for DSP, such as the Inside series of processor analyses, to highly regarded technology seminars, BDTI is the trusted independent source for reliable information on DSP technology. As a software developer, BDTI is known for highly optimized implementations of signal processing algorithms and applications and for solutions to complex problems of integration, code size, and performance.
For more information, visit our Web site at http://www.BDTI.com.
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