InsideDSP — In-depth analysis and opinion

A Survey of Mainstream DSP Processors

The DSP processor landscape is changing in many ways.  For example, in years past, vendors offered numerous “general-purpose” DSPs intended to serve a wide range of applications.  Today, many DSP families are focused on certain types of digital signal processing applications, such as control loops or audio equipment.  In this article, we’ll take a look at the current mainstream choices in DSP processors, and describe their key target applications and competitors. ADI, Freescale, and TI Read more...

CEVA Unveils “Lite” Mobile Multimedia Platform

In March CEVA unveiled “Mobile-Media-Lite” (MMLite), a family of multimedia processing solutions comprising licensable silicon IP and software. The family is aimed at low-end multimedia-enabled devices such as mobile TV players, portable multimedia players, and multimedia phones. CEVA also announced the first family member, the MM2200, a single-processor multimedia engine. CEVA’s intent is to provide highly integrated, application-optimized solutions; the company states that the MM2200 is Read more...

Xilinx Spartan gets DSP

In recent years, FPGA vendors have been aggressively pursuing high-performance signal processing applications. This month Xilinx broadened its target DSP markets by announcing a new lower-cost DSP-oriented FPGA family, Spartan-3A DSP. Spartan-3A DSP FPGAs are intended to provide better DSP performance than other Spartan devices while being less expensive than Xilinx’s high-performance Virtex-4 and Virtex-5 families. The new chip family targets cost-sensitive applications with high computational Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Efficiency Comes in Many Flavors

It’s generally accepted that, for processing engines, there is a trade-off between efficiency and generality.  The more a chip is geared towards a specific application, the more efficient it’s likely to be (in terms of speed, energy consumption, and cost).  On one end of the spectrum you have traditional FPGAs, which are completely general-purpose, and on the other are fixed-function chips, which are completely application specific. In between these extremes lie various types of processors, Read more...

Case Study: Multi-Tiered Software Optimization

It’s generally accepted that, for processing engines, there is a trade-off between efficiency and generality.  The more a chip is geared towards a specific application, the more efficient it’s likely to be (in terms of speed, energy consumption, and cost).  On one end of the spectrum you have traditional FPGAs, which are completely general-purpose, and on the other are fixed-function chips, which are completely application specific. In between these extremes lie various types of processors, Read more...

Case Study: Multi-Tiered Software Optimization

While nearly all signal processing applications require some degree of software optimization, some applications require a sophisticated, multi-tiered optimization approach in order to meet their performance goals. To obtain the most efficient code, DSP software must be optimized at four distinct levels. First, the software architecture and data flow must be designed to take maximum advantage of the processor’s resources. Second, the appropriate data types must be selected—too big and you’re Read more...

Can ARM11 Handle DSP?

ARM’s general-purpose processor cores have long been used alongside DSP processors in products like cell phones, where the ARM core typically handles tasks like packet processing, user interface, and overall control, and the DSP handles the computationally demanding signal processing.  But as ARM has gradually upgraded its cores with DSP-oriented features, more chip and system designers are considering whether to use an ARM core as a DSP engine. The question is, how much signal processing Read more...

Stretch Announces Second-generation Software Configurable Processor

On March 5, Stretch, Inc. announced its second-generation software configurable processor family, the S6000, and two initial chips. With this offering—its first since the appointment last year of a new CEO—Stretch is mainly targeting video surveillance, video broadcast, and WiMAX basestation applications. The S6000, like the previous-generation S5000 family, is a RISC processor which incorporates a reconfigurable compute fabric within its datapath. The fabric (which Stretch calls ISEF) Read more...

BDTI Evaluates TI’s DaVinci Evaluation Module

Last month BDTI published a white paper detailing the results of its analysis of Texas Instruments’ Digital Video Evaluation Module (DVEVM).  The DVEVM is one component of TI's “DaVinci” digital video platform, which also includes video-oriented chips, off-the-shelf multimedia codec software, development tools, and APIs.   BDTI's evaluation focuses on whether the DVEVM is straightforward to use, how well it supports application prototyping, and whether it provides system designers with enough Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Efficiency Comes in Many Flavors

These days, there are so many start-ups developing programmable processors that it feels like we’re back in the “bubble” years, when anyone with a remotely viable processor design could secure venture funding. A pivotal question for the current crop of start-ups is whether to offer their processors as flexible, general-purpose chips, or as highly specialized, application-specific solutions. Should it be a jack-of-all-trades, or a master of one? If the processor is complex or the programming Read more...