Overview of the BDTI Benchmarking Process

The following is an overview of the process for licensing, implementing, and certifying BDTI benchmarks on a processor you have developed. (Note that this process does not apply if you are just interested in using existing BDTI benchmark results to choose a processor or keep tabs on your competitors. Rather, this page is for companies considering implementing BDTI benchmarks on new processors.)

In general, regardless of the particular BDTI benchmark you’re interested in, the process is:

1. License the BDTI benchmark specification

2. Implement the benchmarks

3. (Optional) Certify the results

4. (Optional) Release the results

License the BDTI benchmark specification.  The first step involves licensing the relevant BDTI benchmark specification. A license provides: a written document describing the benchmarks and giving guidance on implementation; a reference implementation; test vectors; and, support. A basic license grants you a one-year right to implement the benchmarks on one processor.

Implement the BDTI benchmarks.  The second step is to implement the benchmarks on your processor. You can either do it yourself or you can have us do it for you.

For the do-it-yourself option you’ll need to dedicate an engineer who is expert in your new processor to work on the project. You’ll also need working tools and either working silicon or a cycle-accurate instruction set simulator. It usually takes two to three engineer-months to implement the benchmarks.

The biggest advantage of the do-it-yourself option is that you will learn a tremendous amount about the performance of your processor on signal processing tasks—there is simply no substitute for having one of your engineers roll up his or her sleeves and write assembly code and then measure its execution time to really understand your processor’s performance.

One important limitation of the do-it-yourself method is this: you can’t disclose the results of your benchmarking to anyone, including potential customers—even under NDA—until you certify the results with BDTI. The reason for this is simple: quality control. You may have made some perfectly honest mistakes that make your processor appear to perform better or worse than it actually should on the benchmark. Certification is covered in step 3 below.

If you’re short on engineering staff, we can implement the benchmarks for you on your processor. There are three big advantages here: (1) you don’t need to dedicate an engineer to the project for a month or more, (2) we know the benchmark suite inside and out—and we’ve implemented the benchmarks on dozens of processors—so we’ll do a great job, and (3) our results are automatically certified.

The cost of implementation depends on the complexity of the processor and the state of its documentation and development tools.

Certify the BDTI Benchmarks.   In the certification process BDTI engineers verify that your implementation is functional, compliant with the specification, and is optimally implemented. This step is required if you want to release benchmark results to the public or to your customers (even under NDA); you cannot release BDTI benchmark results until they are certified. As mentioned, certification is automatic if we implement the benchmarks for you.

Release the results.  Once your results are certified, you can release them to customers in product presentations, use them in product announcements, and even publish them in advertising. BDTI's quality control extends to release of results—BDTI will work with you to ensure your disclosures are accurate and impactful.

If this brief overview of the benchmarking process leaves you wanting more information, we would be delighted to schedule a presentation with you. Please contact us via the web or call us at +1 925 954 1411.