Last month the ISO approved the final technical ballot for Embedded C, an extension to the C programming language that will ease signal-processing software development. After an additional round of editing, the ISO is expected to publish the Embedded C specification as a “technical report.” An ISO technical report is similar to a standard, but carries somewhat less authority.

Think you know who your competitors are? You’d better watch your back, because changes in end products are forcing processor vendors and equipment manufacturers to face unfamiliar new foes.

On 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.)

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 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.

Analog Devices DRAMatically Improves TigerSHARC

Analog Devices announced three new TigerSHARC family members, the TS201, TS202, and TS203, at last month’s Embedded Processor Forum. These new parts represent a major upgrade to the TigerSHARC family in terms of speed, memory capacity, and cost effectiveness.

A central theme of last month’s Embedded Processor Forum was the challenge of combining high speed with low power consumption. NeoMagic presented an unusual approach to this problem in its “MiMagic 6” application processor. (For more information on application processors and an overview of the competitive field, see the March 2003 edition of the DSP Insider.)

Consumer audio products have always held a special fascination for me. Indeed, it was my childhood interest in audio gear that largely motivated my pursuit of an engineering career. But during most of my career, mainstream consumer audio technology has been pretty staid territory, with little in the way of exciting technology and few compelling new products.

On May 5th, TI announced that it had demonstrated a ’C64xx chip running at 1GHz. TI did not announce any ’C64xx products at this clock speed, but indicated that it expects to be sampling such chips in the first half of next year. (The fastest ’C64xx devices currently available run at 720 MHz.) The new TI chips will target signal-processing intensive applications such as communications infrastructure equipment and high-definition video systems.