The following Spectrum news release came out 2 months ago during DSP World. I found it at an obscure web site while surfing the net over lunch today. With shareholders begging the company to be kept informed and many obviously selling lately, I cannot figure why this release was not made more readily available.
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Spectrum Signal Processing Leverages Harris Semiconductor's New Programmable Down Coverter Chip and TMS320C6x DSP In Software Radio Market
Software Radio Primarily Targeted at US$12 billion Cellular and PCS OEM Market
Burnaby, B.C., Canada - September 16, 1997 - Spectrum Signal Processing (NASDAQ NMS: SSPIF / TSE: SSY) today
announced that it is working in close collaboration with Harris Semiconductor (NYSE:HRS) to bring a new Software Radio product line
to market. The new line of products -- based on Spectrum's 'C6x product family -- will utilize Harris Semiconductor's new
programmable down converter (PDC) chip. Harris' new chip, the HSP50214A, operates at 65MHz and performs down conversion of
radio signals for multiple air-surface standards such as AMPS, GSM and CDMA. This chip is ideally suited for many of Spectrum's
'C6x-based flexible radio receiver products.
Harris Semiconductor ICs have been used in Spectrum products for many years. "We're pleased to continue our work with Spectrum
because they're the largest DSP systems company in the world and will undoubtedly take our 50214A chip, designed into their products,
into many of the DSP-based applications we've envisioned," said Bob Pearson, Marketing Manager for Harris. "Spectrum is important to
us as a customer, as an alpha and beta test partner, and as a partner in joint sales and marketing efforts."
Harris' 50214A PDC chips are being used in Spectrum's 'C6x PEM based modules to provide two and four channel digital radio
receivers. Incoming signals from an antenna system are digitized by Spectrum's PMC based A/D converters and forwarded via a
1.4Gbit/s serial bus (G-Link) to one or more PEM based receiver modules for demodulation and analysis. The PMC A/D and PEM
modules can reside on either of Spectrum's 'C6x DSP boards, the Monaco or Daytona.
"We are very excited by the opportunities these combined technologies present," states Michael Anderson, Spectrum's Market
Development Manager. "The unsurpassed quality of Spectrum's products coupled with Harris' 50214A chip and Texas Instruments' 'C6x
processor will provide the best software radio solution to our customers. The inherent flexibility of Spectrum's products will enable
OEMs to exploit far-ranging applications such as surveillance, cellular basestations, and cellular test equipment."
The 50214A PDC -- by virtue of its ability to process many different signal types -- offers designers an unprecedented opportunity to
develop advanced receiving systems that aren't locked into one configuration, and can therefore handle many different signal types. The flexibility to move from one radio configuration to another is now possible as software, rather than hardware, can now control the
parameters used to recover radio signals.
Spectrum's initial C6x-based products, the Monaco and Daytona boards will be available in Q1 of 1998, and Harris' new chip, the
HSP50214A is sampling now. |
