All DSP solutions companies historically sold to the DOD. This was due to the poor cost/performance of older dsp cores and the lack of COTS standards. Cost didn't matter to DOD where performance was superior. Now that ADI and TXN have developed powerful SHARC/C6 cores the cost/performance points have shifted dramatically making dsp solutions cheaper and more powerful than legacy technologies. Spectrum has announced deals with Boeing, Applied Signal, Kodak, Siemens, Bell and Howell etc. The new high performance cores C6 from TI and Sharc from ADI make dsps cost effective for an unlimited number of applications. Spectrum is the largest dsp solutions company if you look at revenue fro dsp alone. The solutions market really is just getting on its feet. With the development of COTS and Spectrums software division unique to the dsp sol'n co's. its asic capabilities and its relationship with the largest dsp core co's TI/ADI it is a matter of time before there vertical market plan allows for the wins to generate recurrent revenue.
DSPs will not replace CPUs. Here is an over view from Spectrums website
DSP technology is revolutionizing the electronics industry and
transforming our lives. Essentially, DSP converts and processes
continuous analog signals into digital signals which a computer
understands. The computer is then able to manipulate these signals in a myriad of ways which were impossible when the signals were in analog
form.
DSP chips are programmable, to provide a range of functionality and
upgradeability over a period of time. Spectrum incorporates these DSP
chips into the custom designed boards it develops which means they are
software upgradeable to keep pace with the latest technological
advances.
Digital Signal Processing is simply the processing of real-world signals for the purpose of enhancing, modifying, analyzing or communicating their information content.
Typical processing tasks include:
€Filtering
€Correlation
€Spectral Analysis
In order to perform it¹s task of real-world signal processing, the DSP, like any other, must be incorporated into a system that includes
additional hardware resources. As shown in the diagram above (2 and 4), Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) are often part of a DSP system. Of course, if the input signal is already digital, the ADC and DAC may not be necessary.
A Brief History of DSP
Practical real-time digital signal processing was initially performed on DEC PDP and VAX machines in the Œ60s.
DEC's PDP-11
In the Œ70s, various computing engines used discrete TTL logic chips
like AMD¹s Am2901 4-bit ALU to accomplish DSP tasks. The first modern
DSP chip was developed by NEC in 1980 and was called the µPD7720 . In
1982 Texas Instruments introduced the TMS32010 (The C came later with
the advent of CMOS Technology)
TI's Speak and Spell - using the the TMS32010 DSP
Now TI, ADI, Motorola, AT&T, NEC, and IBM among others sell single chip programmable DSPs that have advanced architectures but that still
resemble the early 7720 and 32010 of the Œ80s
DSP chips are conceptually similiar to other processors, except that
they have been optimized to execute signal processing functions like
filtering, correlation and spectral analysis. Many operations,
especially those typically used when processing signals, are executed in single instructions. What sets many modern DSP's apart from other
processors is that they are specifically designed to be scalable. This
is usually achieved by means of high speed ports and shared memory that interfaces gluelessly to other DSPs. Many common DSP algorithms, for example synthetic aperture radar (SAR) processing, lend themselves to being distributed over a number of DSPs, with a corresponding
improvement in processing time. In addition, DSP tools and operating
systems have evolved to the point that developing code for
multiprocessor applications is a trivial extention to just programming a single processor.
In certain applications, there are alternatives to using general purpose
DSPs. Let's review some of them:
€Algorithm Specific DSP's
€Fixed function ASIC's
€Reprogrammable Hardware (such as FPGA's)
€Host Signal Processing
€RISC Architectures
The Algorithm Specific DSPs and Fixed Function ASICs may be effective as DSP co-processors, but lack versatility for general signal processing. Reprogrammable hardware such as FPGAs is relatively fast, but is relatively difficult to develop with, and development time can be prohibitive when compared to simply coding in C on a general purpose DSP.
Host signal processing ( formerly termed "Native signal processing" )
refers to cases where DSP algorithms are actually executed on the host
PC, for example the Pentium processor in your PC. This method is growing in popularity, driven by the demand for lower cost in multimedia PC systems. However, PC operating systems (such as Windows 95), and the associated applications require much processing power, and this factor, coupled with the very limited scalability of such systems, make it unlikely that the host processor could ever be used for anything other than low-end DSP applications.
RISC Processors are increasingly incorporating DSP-like capabilities,
aided by their high clock speed, currently in the 200-400 MHz range. In single processor applications, these devices are comparable to some
modern DSP's, but once again, in high-end applications the scalability
of the DSP completely surpasses the capabilities offered by RISC's. Once again, it should be remembered that RISC devices have not been optimized for real-time data processing. For example, the hardware includes many non real time features (e.g. the Memory Management Unit ), that add overhead and make code less deterministic.
In summary, DSP¹s, with their optimized features, allow for
deterministic, reconfigurable and easily scalable real time processing
and data manipulation. DSP technology is rapidly gaining popularity in
the 90¹s.
spectrumsignal.com
here are some URL's for you to get started doing your dd
fwdconcepts.com
fwdconcepts.com
dspworld.com
eet.com
dspworld.com
analog.com
analog.com
specialty.com
comsoc.org
threel.co.uk
ti.com
redchip.com
unwiredplanet.com
wired.com
wow-com.com
If you can't answer your questions with these links I would be happy to try and discuss specifics. Enjoy your research:)
Regards
Norden |
