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
- Siemens collaborates with TSMC on design tool certifications for the foundry's newest processes and other enablement milestones
- Leveraging Cryogenics and Photonics for Quantum Computing
- Kalray Joins Arm Total Design, Extending Collaboration with Arm on Accelerated AI Processing
- Credo at TSMC 2024 North America Technology Symposium
- Cadence Reports First Quarter 2024 Financial Results
Most Popular
- Huawei Mate 60 Pro processor made on SMIC 7nm N+2 process
- Silicon Creations Reaches Milestone of 10 Million Wafers in Production with TSMC
- GUC provides 3DIC ASIC total service package to AI/HPC/Networking customers
- Analog Bits to Demonstrate Numerous Test Chips Including Portfolio of Power Management and Embedded Clocking and High Accuracy Sensor IP in TSMC N3P Process at TSMC 2024 North America Technology Symposium
- Alphawave Semi: FY 2023 and 2024 YTD Trading Update and Notice of Results