NVM OTP NeoBit in Maxchip (180nm, 160nm, 150nm, 110nm, 90nm, 80nm)
Licensable IP houses leapfrogging DSP incumbents
dspdesignline.com (June 25, 2009)
Noting that CEVA, Tensilica and ARC have recently launched radically new DSP-specific architectures, I began to wonder if the traditional DSP chip suppliers, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Freescale, LSI and NEC have been as aggressive in their recent offerings. I don't mean to infer that the licensable IP cores are better than those of the DSP silicon vendors, but there is the perception is that the licensing folks are more aggressive in introducing new and novel architectures.
TI continues to rollout new DSP chips, but they are based substantially on shrinking geometries, adding more features, accelerators or more memory and I/O to legacy architectures. Of course, TI's mantra has always been "code compatibility," so maybe that's not a bad approach. Freescale seems to be frozen in time on its base 16-bit DSP architecture, although the company has provided some remarkable additions for its heavy-duty, StarCore quad-core infrastructure chips. For basic DSP needs, the company seems to have made more progress in beefing up its legacy 32-bit Coldfire RISC product line with DSP capability. But that's bolting on features to an architecture that harkens back to the Motorola 68000 (c.1979).
E-mail This Article | Printer-Friendly Page |
Related News
- Cadence Offers Industry's First Licensable MPEG-H Audio Decoder for Tensilica HiFi DSPs
- HDSX - High Definition Sound Expansion Now Licensable on Tensilica HiFi DSP Cores from Cadence
- Cadence Offers Industry’s First Licensable Audio DSP IP Supporting Dolby Digital Plus with DS1
- Bwave and Ubiso to Demonstrate World's First Licensable Multi-Standard DVB-T2 DTV Demodulation IP Subsystem Based on Tensilica's ConnX BBE16 DSP
- CEVA Unveils Industry's First C-Based Application Optimization Toolchain for Licensable DSPs
Breaking News
- Micon Global and Silvaco Announce New Partnership
- Arm loses out in Qualcomm court case, wants a re-trial
- Jury is out in the Arm vs Qualcomm trial
- Ceva Seeks To Exploit Synergies in Portfolio with Nano NPU
- Synopsys Responds to U.K. Competition and Markets Authority's Phase 1 Announcement Regarding Ansys Acquisition