90-nm devices increase speed and shrink cost
By Robert Cravotta -- EDN, February 5, 2004
Texas Instruments is rolling out its fastest DSPs ever. These DSPs take advantage of a 10-stage instruction-pipeline architecture, a dual-data architecture with 32 32-bit register files per datapath, and the architecture balances data functional units to match the critical path execution implemented on a 90-nm process technology to deliver 1-GHz operation. The C6414/15/16 DSPs are pin-compatible, and all integrate on-chip more than 1 Mbyte of memory and a 64-channel enhanced DMA controller. The C6415T also includes Utopia 2 ATM and PCI or HPI32 host connections. The C6416T adds a Viterbi and Turbo coprocessor.
All three of the 1-GHz devices are available for sampling for prices starting at $189 (10,000) for the C6414. Moving to the 90-nm process technology has enabled Texas Instruments to more than halve the price for 720-MHz C64x devices because of the reduced die size and greater yield. Prices for the 90-nm, 720-MHz C6415 start at $115 (10,000). The C64x DSP Start Kit is available now for $395.
Texas Instruments, www.ti.com.
