AutoESL’s AutoPilot High-Level Synthesis Tool Achieves BDTI Certification By BDTI, 2/16/2010 BDTI recently completed an in-depth analysis of AutoESL’s AutoPilot high-level synthesis tool via the BDTI High-Level Synthesis Tool Certification Program™. BDTI evaluated the process of implementing applications on a Xilinx FPGA using AutoPilot, comparing it with traditional FPGA design based on hand-written RTL code, and with DSP processor software development. Overall, AutoPilot demonstrated a strong ability to generate high-quality RTL code—with equivalent resource utilization to hand-written RTL code. (More)

Texas Instruments Introduces New Multi-Core System-on-Chip Architecture By BDTI, 2/16/2010 TI has unveiled a new chip-level architecture for high-performance, multi-core DSP-processor-based SoCs.  Most notable among its features are new on-chip and chip-to-chip interconnection mechanisms, an upgraded high-performance DSP core, and both hardware and tools support for programming concurrent applications.  The architecture is optimized to run at 1.0 to 1.2 GHz in 40 nm process technology. (More)

Jeff Bier's Impulse Response: Compilers Can Erase Architectural Advantages By Jeff Bier, 2/16/2010 Back in the early 1990’s, compilers for DSP processors were pretty lame.  Even if a compiler generated code that was functionally correct (which, sadly, wasn’t always the case) the code was usually far from efficient.  At the time, this wasn’t a big deal:  DSP applications were still fairly small (in terms of lines of code), and DSP processor architectures weren’t nearly as complex as they are today. A reasonably skilled DSP software engineer could optimize an application by hand, sometimes entirely in assembly language, without using a compiler at all. (More)

Case Study: Developing Attention-Getting Demos By BDTI, 2/16/2010 Your company just developed the most powerful chip ever.  Your job: to get customers interested in using it in their system designs.  Challenging?  You bet.  As fantastic as its capabilities may be, your little slab of black plastic looks pretty much just like those of your competitors.  Yes, the numbers on your brochure look great.  But, let’s face it, they’re just numbers on paper.  How exciting can they be? (More)