ADI-Intel DSP core appears ready for prime time
By Darrell Dunn
Electronic Buyers' News
(12/01/00, 04:39:56 PM EST)
ebnews.com
The formal debut next week of a jointly developed architecture from Analog Devices Inc. and Intel Corp. appears destined to change the DSP landscape. To what extent, however, will depend on how quickly the companies can begin shipping silicon, according to industry observers.
Some 22 months after announcing their intention to develop the architecture, code-named Frio, Analog Devices and Intel are expected to provide limited details of the core at a press conference scheduled for Tuesday in New York. Specific chip implementations from the individual companies aren't expected until next year, and volume production of new architectures historically can trail introduction by 12 to 18 months.
It is known that Frio will be a key component in Intel's effort to establish itself as a player in the market for handheld information appliances, specifically for 3G cellular handsets. But how the project's principals will work and compete with each other is still open to debate.
The Analog Devices-Intel effort in a number of respects mirrors the earlier StarCore DSP alliance between Lucent Technologies Inc.'s Microelectronics Group and Motorola Inc.'s Semiconductor Products Sector.
Both the Lucent-Motorola and Analog Devices-Intel efforts came in response to the continued dominance of Texas Instruments Inc. in the general-purpose programmable-DSP market, where it holds a nearly 50% market share. Combined, Lucent and Motor-ola-perennially No. 2 and 3 in the DSP market, respectively-begin to approach the size of TI.
Analog Devices, Norwood, Mass., which has fluctuated between No. 3 and 4 in the four-player market, has gained a formidable partner in microprocessor king Intel. However, as Analog Devices and Intel bring their new DSP architecture to fruition, it appears that both have designs on the same wireless-handset applications, according to analysts.
Even without Frio, the past year was a breakthrough for Analog Devices' efforts to establish itself as a leading supplier of chipsets to the cellular-handset market, said Will Strauss, an analyst at Forward Concepts Co., Tempe, Ariz.
Analog Devices this year has been shipping significant volumes of GSM-compliant chipsets to Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and a month ago announced that Siemens AG will use its GSM/GPRS chipset in 2.5G handsets. Strauss estimates the design win with the world's fourth-largest handset manufacturer could boost Analog Devices' sales by 25 million units next year. The chipset Siemens is using will be built around Analog Devices' ADSP218x DSP and an ARM7 combination.
Intel, meanwhile, has been working with Mitsubishi Electric Corp. on a 3G design, and earlier this year, Ron Smith, vice president of Intel's Wireless Communications & Computing Group, said Frio will provide the DSP functionality for the Intel Personal Client Architecture platform. IPCA will use Frio and the XScale microprocessor, a new Intel-designed implementation of the StrongARM.
IPCA is similar in structure and intent to TI's Open Multimedia Applications Platform (OMAP) for 3G, which is built around TI's TMS320C55x DSP and the ARM9 microprocessor.Analog Devices and Intel have revealed virtually no details concerning their DSP development plans since first disclosing in February 1999 that they would create a design center in Austin, Texas, to develop the core. Frio is expected to be a high-performance, low-power device, but it's not known if the architecture will be compatible with existing Analog Devices DSPs.
The two companies declined to discuss the new core prior to its launch tomorrow. Although two years is not considered an inordinate amount of time to develop a new DSP architecture, there were indications that Analog Devices and Intel had intended to disclose the Frio at the Embedded Processor Forum in June. Intel has denied the introduction was ever delayed.
“I'm used to the long stretch-out on these things,” Strauss said. “I'm not overly concerned about the time it took up to now; the important thing is how quickly they execute from this point. They haven't revealed many details, but from what they've shown in some performance figures, it certainly will be competitive.”
Analog Devices will likely develop a series of standard offerings based on Frio, while Intel will use the new core primarily in application-specific designs, Strauss believes. This is similar to the division of labor under way in the StarCore alliance, where Motorola has led the way in standard offerings while Lucent has concentrated on customer-specific implementations.
It may also be incumbent upon Analog Devices to provide a base of development tools and third-party support for Frio since it has the established track record in DSP and is second only to TI in third-party design partners, Strauss said.
“Intel knows that by even conservative estimates, a billion handsets will be shipping in 2003,” he said. “Half of all shipments now are replacements, and it will be around 65% to 70% of the 2003 market. There are only a few companies in the world that can meet the silicon requirements for a billion-unit market, and Intel is one of them. Intel clearly sees it as an attractive market and one that's growing faster than the PC market.”
Having made its fortune selling microprocessors, Intel has had an aversion to using the term DSP and prefers to define the technology as “state machine” or “native signal processing.” As recently as last week, the Santa Clara, Calif., company was debating whether the term DSP would be used in its official Frio press release, Strauss said, and may end up calling the architecture Intel signal processing (ISP).
“Intel is committed to the DSP market now, but they have to overcome their problem of religion,” Strauss said. “They've had to be dragged screaming into the 21st century. We know that DSP is now the driver for the whole semiconductor market. You can't get to the Internet without DSP, whether that's by DSL modems, cable modems, cell phones, or PDAs.”
Traditional DSP players last week expressed doubt as to how quickly and extensively the Frio architecture will penetrate the market against established architectures.
“[We are] clearly ahead in the 3G wireless race,” said Tom Engibous, TI's chairman, president, and chief executive, last week at the Credit Suisse First Boston Annual Technology Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. “Leading manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Sony, and Handspring already have selected TI's OMAP as the platform for their next-generation, high-speed data products. And eight out of the top 10 wireless-basestation manufacturers have embraced TI's DSP technology for their 3G basestations.”
The StarCore alliance, which was first announced in 1997, has only this year begun volume shipments of its DSP architecture, and Lucent and Motorola had been working together prior to publicly disclosing the effort.
“Imitation, although late on the part of Analog Devices and Intel, is the sincerest form of flattery,” said Thomas Brooks, marketing director for the StarCore technology center in Atlanta. “One of the reasons the StarCore alliance has worked so well and we've met our milestones is that Lucent and Motorola were leaders in both DSP and the communications market before the Analog Devices-Intel alliance. We have a big lead over whatever they are announcing Tuesday.”
Although the 3G market is a year or more away from moving into volume production, “designs are happening now and we're getting silicon based on StarCore into the hands of OEMs developing next-generation products,” said Scott Beach, StarCore marketing manager. “Our tools are already out there, and OEMs are designing with them to have product available as the technology takes off.”
Bob Carl, director of operations at TI's Wireless Terminals Chipset Business unit in Dallas, also expressed doubts about how quickly Frio would become a factor in the market.
“Intel and Analog Devices are both big companies, but we've been delivering the next-generation DSP technology and continue to improve our road map,” he said. “Certainly, as more people enter the game, it does change the face of the market a little bit, but we're shipping more than a million units a day into the wireless market. It's not a future thing.” |
