DSP Platforms Take Center Stage

By Robert Cravotta -- Movers & Shakers, 6/22/2006

Digital signal processing (DSP) is a critical enabler for cell phones, broadband modems, digital base stations, mobile handsets, digital cameras, as well as audio and video applications. The amount of processing that DSP systems are able to perform in real time continues to escalate exponentially. As signal processing performance increases, so does the complexity of the silicon and software that enable the increased processing.

As a result, silicon providers and their partners are changing how they develop, offer and support their products. Long gone are the days when a company could offer a sample chip and a data sheet or application note with instructions for how a designer could hook up to the processor and start working. Semiconductor companies today offer more complete support with their silicon products by including developments tools, sample software, frameworks, access to application-specific intellectual property (IP), reference designs and design services.

According to iSuppli, the 2005 DSP market was larger than $7.5 billion. Texas Instruments' revenue for DSP products accounts for more than a 50 percent share of that market. Freescale is the second largest DSP vendor, and its 2005 market share is less than one-quarter that of Texas Instruments. While chips for cell phone basebands continue to represent TI's largest DSPsegment, the company recently moved to be the leading player in the emerging video and audio markets with the release of its DaVinci platform.

Wrapping a platform around a silicon offering is not unique to TI, but the DaVinci platform represents a higher support bar vs. previous platform offerings as an approach for how the semiconductor industry can reduce the entry barrier for designers of complex applications, such as video. The product and support model for the platform represents a hybrid approach to delivering basic capabilities and compatibility with room for custom functions while supporting standard configurations that include vertical or application-specific optimization.

Greg Mar, worldwide DSP SoC platform manager at TI shares that "our earlier platform offerings still required the designer to be an expert to harness the promised performance of the system. The DaVinci platform benefits from the lessons learned from earlier offerings by simplifying the complexity to realize the performance promises while maintaining a system that is open enough for expert signal processing developers to fully harness the power of these systems — especially in directions we never imagined."

Greg Delagi, vice president and manager of Worldwide Digital Signal Processing Systems at TI points out "DaVinci is a continuation of a trend on how to support designers. It costs tens of millions of dollars to bring new technology to market, and we feel this approach is the fastest way to meaningfully get the technology into the hands of developers." He adds it is insufficient just to deliver the technology. The vendor must bring the sales force, the technical support force and the third party support up to speed before putting the technology in the hands of the designers. Platform offerings are including more application software, more system integration, design services and licensing options than before.

What is meant by the expression "we offer a complete solution" is a moving target in the semiconductor business. Invariably, it has meant the silicon provider provides more software, design examples, reference designs and IP options than before. To remain a leader in this market requires more than just delivering on raw technical specifications, it requires the market leaders to figure out how to offer more capabilities while keeping a hold on the complexity designers face. The day of the platform as a means for abstracting that complexity finally appears to be upon the market.

Robert Cravotta is a technical editor at EDN magazine.