April 23, 1998

EDN's 1998 DSP-Architecture Directory

Markus Levy, Technical Editor

The explosive growth of DSP-based applications has created an unprecedented demand for this directory. We've packed EDN's annual DSP Directory with details of 27 general-purpose DSP architectures. As an added bonus, you can access our parametric search engine that allows you to find the DSP device that matches your design needs. 

This has been a busy year in the DSP industry. To reflect that activity, this DSP directory contains six new DSP architectures: BOPS' ManArray, DSP Group's Teak, Lucent's DSP16000, Siemens' Tricore, TI's TMS320-C27xx, TI's C67x, and ZSP's 16400. Furthermore, this list doesn't even reflect the plethora of new devices that vendors have introduced for their previous architectures. In addition to an architectural description of these architectures, EDN now offers a Web-based version of the DSP directory. You can access our parametric search engine to find the DSP or µP that matches the precise needs of your design.

Among the hottest architectural innovations this year is the move to dual multiply-accumulate (MAC) units. These architectures allow you to perform twice the digital-signal processing as before. TI kicked off this evolution with its very-long-instruction-word (VLIW)-based C6x, the most talked about processor of the year. This year, TI expands its VLIW offering with a floating-point version, the C67x. The continued conversion of µPs and DSPs is another evolutionary trend for these devices (see "Microprocessor and DSP technologies unite for embedded applications," EDN, March 2, 1998, pg 73). Microprocessor vendors Integrated Device Technology (www.idt.com), Motorola, NEC, and SGS-Thomson have added sophisticated MAC units to their µPs. Some vendors, such as Hyperstone, Siemens, and ZSP, have created hybrid DSP/µP devices from the ground up.

Meanwhile, engineers designing with DSPs need a simple method to compare processor performance. Unfortunately, as processor architectures diversify, traditional metrics such as MIPS and MOPS have become less relevant; hence, this directory avoids using these metrics. Alternatively, Berkeley Design Technology (BDTI, www.bdti.com) has become well-known in the DSP industry for providing DSP benchmarks. Instead of using full-application benchmarks, BDTI has adopted a benchmarking methodology based on DSP-algorithm kernels, such as FFTs and FIR filters. BDTI implements its suite of 11 kernel-based benchmarks (the BDTI Benchmarks) on a variety of processors. You can find the results of these benchmarks in the company's Buyer's Guide to DSP Processors at Berkeley's Web site. To simplify your analysis of these sophisticated benchmarks, BDTI has developed the BDTImark, a composite score that distills the execution-time results from all 11 BDTI benchmarks into one number. The DSP directory table includes these BDTImark benchmark scores; furthermore, you can obtain any last-minute updates from www.bdti.com.  

The EDN Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC, pronounced like "embassy") is developing more detailed and comprehensive perform-ance benchmarks based on real-world benchmarks. These benchmarks comprise suites that encompass DSP-based and other types of applications. In the telecommunication benchmark suite, EEMBC's tests cover functions such as Viterbi address-compare-select, channel equalization, cascaded bi-quad filters, all-pole and all-zero (FIR) filters, FFTs, decimation, and equalization. Be sure to check out www.eembc.org  for up-to-date progress on this EDN-cosponsored consortium.

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