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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Church who wrote (4299)	2/18/1999 9:28:00 AM
From: Paper	Respond to of 10309

Where does LINUS stand in the scheme of kernels for real time?

To: Peter Church who wrote (4299)	2/20/1999 10:39:00 AM
From: James Connolly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10309

TI to offer DSP reference design for printers eet.com By Margaret Quan EE Times (02/19/99, 5:01 p.m. EDT) DALLAS — In late 1999, Texas Instruments will offer the x-Stream DSP Technology, a complete reference system that may be the first DSP-based solution for embedded control systems for color laser printers. Created by TI's Raster Image Processing Business group, TI's DSP system is designed to replace existing solutions that use a RISC microprocessor and several co-companion ASICs with DSP-based printer controllers that use a single 60-MHz DSP and single-interface ASIC. TI plans to migrate to a 200-MHz DSP by early 2000. John Van Scoter, manager of TI's Raster Image Processing business, said the system will enable OEMs to develop software-upgradeable color laser printers with printing speeds double that of current printers. He said they can be developed for an equivalent, or lower cost than existing RISC microprocessor-ASIC solutions traditionally used in the embedded control systems of printers. Van Scoter said DSPs will accelerate the rendering portion of the printing process, a math-intensive function in which digital graphics, text and images are converted to color dots on a page. In typical printer engines, the rendering involved in complex printer jobs often slows the printer's stated page-per-minute speed. TI said using its DSP in printers can increase a printer's true page-per-minute speed, accelerating print time to match the rated PPM (page per minute) of the printer engine. Texas Instrument's xStream DSP Technology includes the xStream DSP chip set, Wind River's VxWorks real-time operating system, Tornado tools and documentation. The hardware includes a 60-MHz TI DSP, scalable memory of 512 kbits of ROM, 2 to 4 Mbits of Flash ROM, 16 to 128 Mbits of SDRAM, interfaces for engine command/status and the video interface and operator control panel. Networking connectivity includes TCP/IP stack with a 10/100BaseT Ethernet interface, IEEE 1284, extra PCI slots, an RS-232 serial port and disk interface. The system software includes Adobe's PostScript Page Description Language and fonts, PCLxL, PCL5C Emulation and AGFA fonts, PDL enhancements for rendering, screening, compression/decompression, interpretation and resolution, engine and OCP communication interfaces, Line Printer Daemon and APIs. The xStream DSP Technology development system will be available in volume in the third quarter of 1999. TI's Van Scoter said the reference design has already received support from printer vendors, and hinted that the first printers with the new DSP solution will be available at the end of 1999 from Minolta. TI expects its DSP printer controller solution to scale into copier and multifunction peripheral devices. The company also envisions giving OEMs the option of integrating speech-recognition functions into printers, leveraging TI's expertise in this area. International Data Corporation (Framingham,Mass.) printer analyst Alison Frasco said it appears TI's DSP solution will be able to meet or beat price points at the low end of the color-laser-printer market, which is in the $2,000 price range, and create significant price and performance advantages in the high-end, $6,000-range market for desktop color laser printers. She suggested there may be more benefits to using the TI DSP solution in high-end printers where a single DSP and a single ASIC will replace what would have been a RISC microprocessor and several ASICs, thereby reducing the number of chips and cutting costs. Since most printer vendors have introduced new printer engines in their printers within the last year, Frasco believes it will be 2000-2001 before products based on TI's DSP technology are available. This isn't the first time TI has targeted the printer market, but it is the first time TI is marketing its DSPs for printers in what's traditionally been an embedded microprocessor solution. According to Vivek Kumar Thakur, the manager of new-business development in the Raster Image Processing group, Texas Instruments' focus on the printer market began in 1993 when the company launched a corporate-ventures R&D program. At the time, the focus was on the printer-systems business. TI's Thakur said the company shifted the emphasis of the printer business away from systems to printer controllers in the first quarter of 1997. During the last few years, TI's work in software and hardware architecture and raster image processing has resulted in more than 40 patents based around the xStream DSP reference design technology, according to Van Scoter. He said the patents cover such technologies as rendering, interpretation, compression and decompression, event scheduling and printer system architecture. Regards JC.