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Spectrum and TI the companies have developed quite an array of high end solutions particularly for the wireless market. The Hurricane ASIC is IMO a huge advantage for TI and SSPI in the largest market opportunity to roll out this year compare BWSI solution to SSPI a crossbar switch vs SSPIs Hurricane ASIC
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Over in TI land, the current-generation C6x DSPs "have no comm ports,"
saidBlue Wave's Shadduck, "so you need to provide another means of throwing dataat the processors, some high-speed data path that requires minimal processorintervention." The route taken by Blue Wave for a quad-DSP VME boardintroduced earlier this year is a crossbar switch.
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From BWSI
The crossbar on the Model VME/C6420 board links up to four TMS320C6201fixed-point DSPs or TMS320C6701 floating-point DSPs, as well as the board's VMEbus interface, P2 interface and on-board PMC site. It allows up to five 200-Mbyte/s transfers to occur simultaneously: four on board, one between boards.
The crossbar is dynamically reconfigurable and all of the routing is done in hardware, Shadduck said. The result, he said, is "an immense saving in software overhead." The board uses a Motorola MPC860 as a supervisory processor.
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Spectrum solution is a Hurricane
"With our exclusive hardware features such as the Hurricane chip (a
PCI-to-DSP bridge), Processor Expansion Modules (PEMs), and the ongoing development of Diamond (a multi-DSP Real-Time Operating System from 3L Limited - a Spectrum company), we will deliver 'C67x-based solutions that define the industry's highest-performance and the easiest to use products available," states Ron Wages, Vice President of Marketing at Spectrum.
Spectrum's initial entry into the 'C67x arena will be with four system
solutions. The Detroit67 is a cost-effective single processor system
suitable for both high-volume OEM products and for application
development systems. The Daytona67, a single or dual-processor PCI
system, and the Barcelona67, a dual or quad-processor CompactPCI
product, both feature a distributed shared memory architecture provided by the Hurricane chip and SBSRAM. The Monaco67 is a VME-based system available in single, dual or quad-processor configurations, suitable for high-end imaging and military applications. Also on the product development horizon may be a VXI 'C67x-based system for the wireless market, thereby providing a migration path to implement TI's latest floating-point processor to customers who are currently using Spectrum's 'C4x-based shielded VXI systems.
For floating-point customers who are anxious to begin developing their
'C67x systems now, Spectrum has packaged its 'C6x Detroit product as a
complete stand-alone development package with intensive product
training. Customers who choose to field a 'C67x product can get their
application up and running on Spectrum's 'C6201-based product; then once 'C67x silicon is available, easily (within hours) migrate to a
'C67x-based product using Diamond, a platform and processor-independent, multi-DSP real-time operating system. TheDetroit development package comes with TI tools (compiler, assembler, linker, and simulator), 3L's Diamond RTOS software and Go DSP's Code Composer for US$6900.
Spectrum's 'C67x systems feature Spectrum's PCI-to-DSP bridge chip:
Hurricane. This ASIC was architected and developed for use exclusively
on Spectrum DSP products to increase I/O dataflow to and from the PCI
interface at a sustained transfer rate of 132MB/s, and to utilize space very efficiently. This performance feature is complemented by additional I/O capabilities, including industry-standard Industry Pack™ and PMC modules and Spectrum-developed Processor Expansion Modules (PEM) which provide 400MBytes/s of I/O bandwidth per DSP. These features allow Spectrum's distributed shared memory architecture and modularity to capitalize on the performance and floating-point advantages of the 'C67x.
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"The 'C6x family of DSPs have been designed for the intensive processing requirements of telecommunications applications such as digital beam forming and smart antennas," states Byron Banks, Spectrum's 'C6x Product Line Manager. "Spectrum's advanced hardware and software architectures allow developers to implement these large algorithms by efficiently distributing the processing over multiple C6x processors."
Baja supports Spectrum's comprehensive set of 'C6x tools, such as host
interface libraries and drivers, board support libraries, Go DSP's Code Composer, and 3L's Diamond. This common software platform enables
customers to begin development on Spectrum's 'C6201 products such as
Barcelona, a quad processor CompactPCI product, and then easily migrate their application to Baja or any of Spectrum's 'C6x and 'C67x products.
Baja will be available in the third quarter 99
Norden
psLooking forward to clarification of the ADI SSPI announcement for EVM board to be developed by SSOI for ADI's new high end cores hammer/tiger? sharc. Is ADI paying SSPI for the development of board? |
