InsideDSP — In-depth analysis and opinion

DSP Growth Stunted

According to a recently revised market forecast by Forward Concepts (http://fwdconcepts.com), total DSP processor revenues will drop this year for the first time in the industry's 21-year history. An earlier forecast had called for a depressed 10% growth in 2001 (down from 30% growth in 2000), but this estimate has been scaled back significantly—the new projection is for a precipitous 25% drop. Many of the industry's key players are showing a corresponding drop in revenues. TI is projecting 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...

ADI's New Micro Signal Architecture-based Device

Analog Devices (ADI) announced this month the first device based on the Micro Signal Architecture (MSA), a new 16-bit fixed-point DSP architecture jointly developed by ADI and Intel. The ADSP-21535, the first in ADI's new "Blackfin" family, joins an already competitive field of low-power, moderate-performance architectures that target portable communications applications. Several attributes of the MSA, however, might well distinguish it from the rest of this pack, which includes the TI 'C55xx Read more...

News from EPF: Heterogeneous DSP Designs

Three new DSP architectures were presented at the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose last month. All three architectures are heterogeneous, i.e., they each combine a DSP with other performance enhancing hardware. All three architectures also target communications applications. It is already common in communications applications to find boards that combine DSPs, general-purpose processors, reconfigurable logic, and ASICs, albeit with each on a separate chip. As the potential for 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...

ADI's ADSP-2191: More Bang for the Buck

Analog Devices recently announced the ADSP-2191, the first single-core member of its ADSP-219x family. According to ADI, the '2191 will operate at 160 MHz at 2.5 volts. The 16-bit '2191 targets telecommunications applications with a DMA controller, an 8- or 16- bit host port interface, three synchronous serial ports, two serial peripheral interfaces, and one UART. Along with the chip itself ADI will offer a suite of communications algorithms that are optimized for the '2191. Chips are Read more...

News from ICASSP: New NEC Architecture for 3G

During last month's ICASSP conference in Salt Lake City, NEC unveiled the SPXK5, the company's latest DSP architecture. This low-power DSP targets 3G terminal applications with a dual-MAC VLIW architecture. The SPXK5's key competitors include TI's 'C55xx line, the ST100 from STMicroelectronics, StarCore's SC110, and the Micro Signal Architecture from Analog Devices and Intel. According to NEC, samples will be available by the end of this year, with commercial production scheduled for mid-2002 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...

Texas Instruments Announces the First ‘C64xx Family Members

Texas Instruments recently announced its first three products based on the 'C64xx DSP core: the TMS320C6414, TMS320C6415, and TMS320C6416. All three devices are scheduled to begin sampling in June 2001, about a year and a half after TI originally announced the core. The target speed for initial samples remains an aggressive 600 MHz, but 400 and 500 MHz versions of each device will also be available. Prices for the 400 MHz 'C6414 begin at $95, with prices for the 'C6415 and 'C6416 scaling Read more...

Conexant Licenses LSI Logic's ZSP Core for Wireless Mobile Applications

On March 16 LSI Logic announced that it will license its ZSP core to Conexant for use in wireless mobile applications. Following on the heels of Broadcom and IBM, Conexant's deal with LSI Logic is a strong endorsement of the ZSP's potential as a licensable core—a potential that has not always been clear. In 1998 ZSP Corporation, the original developers of the core, demonstrated silicon at a then-impressive 200 MHz, but the architecture was unable to get traction in the market. BDTI analyzed Read more...