Mission accomplished: TI's TMS320C66x multicore DSPs surpass industry standards on performance and floating-point capabilities, meeting vital requirements of power, accuracy and resolution for mission critical markets

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Nov 07, 2011, 08:00 ET

BALTIMORE, Nov. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- MILCOM -- Raising the bar on performance and precision standards for mission critical applications, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) is offering developers the industry's highest performing multicore digital signal processors based on its TMS320C66x DSP generation. Ideal for applications such as software defined radios (SDRs), radar, surveillance and imaging cameras, TI's C66x DSP generation offers developers a variety of multicore solutions and capabilities, combined with an expanded array of IP cores and development software and tools, enabling sophisticated system architectures that are both power- and cost-efficient. With TI's C66x multicore DSPs, developers can more effectively meet the essential requirements of increasing processing power, accuracy and finer resolution in mission critical applications.

"The defense sensor processing market has an almost endless thirst for computational power often with the need for low power devices," said Bill Lundgren, CEO, Gedae, Inc. "The high bandwidth on-chip data, available on-chip memory, flexibility of a MIMD multicore and massive available compute bandwidth make this family of multicore DSPs from TI very appealing for mission critical applications."

Meeting the needs of mission critical developers

Functionality, reliability and ease of use are vital factors mission critical developers must take into consideration when designing quality system applications. TI's C66x multicore DSPs deliver the industry's first 10-GHz DSP with fixed- and floating-point performance on a single device for increased precision, a key requirement for mission critical systems. Additionally, C66x multicore DSPs increase system capabilities by consolidating the functionality of multiple DSPs onto a single device, saving board space and cost and alleviating the challenge of size, weight and power (SwaP), as well as reducing overall clock rates and power consumptions. TI's multicore DSPs also address interface bandwidth requirements, such as SRIO, PCIe and Hyperlink. And for those applications required to work under extreme physical conditions, such as scorching temperatures and sustaining system long shelf life, TI's multicore solutions offer lead solder ball packages at industrial temperatures, making the C66x family highly reliable and useful in mission critical applications.

Meeting the needs of SDRs

TI's C66x DSP generation includes the TMS320C6670 radio SoC, a 1.2 GHz four core device, boasting improved accelerators for software defined radios (SDRs), public safety and emerging broadband radio systems. The C6670 includes a multistandard Bit Rate Coprocessor (BCP) as well as other coprocessors that accelerate physical layer processing for LTE, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA and WiMAX, substantially increasing system capacity and performance with low latency. In addition, the well balanced programmable CPU cores and configurable accelerators enable software defined radios with a simplified programming model. The addition of improved accelerators further helps to develop multistandard communications-centric solutions for the mission critical industry. In addition, TI's KeyStone multicore architecture allows developers to use the same platform, across TI's C66x multicore DSPs, for supporting multiple and complex waveforms in SDRs.

Meeting the needs of intelligent radar systems

Today's radar systems demand faster processing time for Fast-Fourier transform (FFT). TI's C66x multicore DSPs provide a path for parallel processing in order to meet the FFT processing time requirements. Radar developers can choose to use all of the cores or some of the cores to meet FFT time repose requirements. Once FFT performance is met within a radar system, developers can use the other C66x DSP cores to perform pre and/or post processing of the signals or other tasks in the system. In addition, TI's software tools provide full multicore entitlement to determine the best core configuration, allowing developers more flexibility to meet multiple requirements of radar systems.

Meeting the needs of surveillance and imaging systems

With the advent of cloud computing, there is a move for more centralized networks in surveillance applications, as well as a growing demand for advanced video analytics algorithms to assist in managing the increasing number of camera inputs. All of these demands require a significant amount of processing capabilities. TI's C66x multicore DSPs offer mission critical developers a large collection of algorithms from industry leading third parties and partners, as well as the ability to easily develop their own algorithms with TI's Vision Library. TI's Vision Library includes over 40 common kernels which serve as the essential building blocks of most video analytic algorithms. In addition, TI offers developers advanced codecs, including JPEG 2000, for the best possible image quality, low latency and no inter-frame dependencies which are necessary for many government regulated applications.

In addition to SDRs, radars and surveillance and imaging systems, TI's C66x multicore DSPs have ideal uses in application areas including, flight control, routing, servers, video processing networks and security.

Easing development with multicore software, tools and low cost EVMs

With its robust suite of multicore software, tools and low cost evaluation modules (EVMs), TI is easing development and getting customers closer to tapping the full performance of multicore. Significant updates to TI's multicore software kit and toolset, include Linux software, optimized libraries, support for the OpenMP programming model and a free multicore software development kit (MCSDK). Development and evaluation of the C66x multicore devices is made easy with comprehensive low cost EVMs available from TI. Designers can begin development on the C6678 multicore DSP with the TMDSEVM6678L for $399. The EVM includes a free MCSDK, Code Composer Studio™ integrated development environment (IDE) and suite of application/demo codes to allow programmers to quickly come up to speed on the new platform.

TI's KeyStone multicore architecture

Texas Instruments' KeyStone multicore architecture is the platform for true multicore innovation, offering developers a robust portfolio of high performance, low-power multicore devices. Unleashing breakthrough performance, the KeyStone architecture is the foundation upon which TI's new TMS320C66x DSP generation was developed. KeyStone differs from any other multicore architecture as it has the capacity to provide full processing capability to every core in a multicore device. KeyStone-based devices are optimized for high performance markets including wireless base stations, mission critical, test and automation, medical imaging and high performance computing. Learn more at www.ti.com/c66multicore.

TI's HiRel analog and embedded processing portfolio

In addition to commercial and industrial temperature offerings, TI's HiRel group is helping shape technology to improve the quality and accessibility of defense, avionic and aerospace applications, offering an enhanced product portfolio where high reliability and long service life are required. All of TI's analog and embedded processing products are available in industry-standard packages, which have the benefits of a controlled baseline, extended product change notification, extended temperature performance and qualification pedigree. TI guarantees all products will manufacture to datasheet specifications. For more information, please visit www.ti.com/ep.

For more information:

Watch TI's multicore Ask The Experts series
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SOURCE Texas Instruments Incorporated