|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Jeff Bier's Impulse Response—Embedded Processor Wars |
By Jeff Bier, 12/19/2007
For a while there, it seemed as though DSP processors and general-purpose processors (GPPs) were morphing into one another. In an effort to provide better DSP performance, general-purpose processors (GPPs) were incorporating increasingly powerful DSP-oriented features.
(More)
|
|
|
| |
| Jeff Bier's Impulse Response—Fried Fahrvergnügen |
By Jeff Bier, 11/14/2007
Do you ever look at a piece of hardware and wonder, “Why, oh why, did they build it like that?” This is what I’m thinking as I look at my 2001 Volkswagen Passat, a car that is now completely dysfunctional because of an unfortunate (yet easily foreseen) intersection of water and electronic circuitry. Let me explain.
(More)
|
|
|
| |
| Jeff Bier's Impulse Response— Revisiting Heterogeneous vs Homogeneous |
By Jeff Bier, 9/26/2007
Back in 2001 I wrote a column about the merits of using heterogeneous designs for signal processing-oriented applications. My argument went like this: signal processing applications typically encompass diverse data rates, data types, and algorithms, and it often makes sense to address these needs using a collection of similarly diverse processing engines rather than taking a one-size-must-fit-all approach.
(More)
|
|
|
| |
| Jeff Bier's Impulse Response—All Video Apps are Not Alike |
By Jeff Bier, 8/22/2007
Pretty much everyone agrees that digital video has become a killer app for embedded processing engines. But “video” can mean different things to different people; the term encompasses a diverse set of applications with very different requirements. A processor you’d use for video playback in a low-cost cell phone, for example, isn’t going to cut it for an HDTV set and vice versa.
(More)
|
|
|
| |
| Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response – DSP Vendors Need Multi-Core Tools Strategy |
By BDTI, 6/20/2007
There’s been a lot of press lately about start-up companies offering multi-core DSP chips. What’s less widely discussed is that large, established DSP chip vendors have been offering multi-core DSP chips for years. These chips have been popular in “channelized” applications where workload partitioning is fairly straightforward.
(More)
|
|
|
| |
| Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response – Efficiency Comes in Many Flavors |
By Jeff Bier, 4/25/2007
It’s generally accepted that, for processing engines, there is a trade-off between efficiency and generality. The more a chip is geared towards a specific application, the more efficient it's likely to be (in terms of speed, energy consumption, and cost).
(More)
|
|
|
| |
| Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response – Jack or Master? |
By Jeff Bier, 3/14/2007
These days, there are so many start-ups developing programmable processors that it feels like we’re back in the “bubble” years, when anyone with a remotely viable processor design could secure venture funding.
(More)
|
|
|
| |
| Jeff Bier's Impulse Response - Signal Processing Isn't a Commodity |
By Jeff Bier, 2/14/2007
At the Consumer Electronics Show last month I was struck (not for the first time) by the number of consumer electronics products that rely on digital signal processing—at this point, nearly all of them. In fact, so many of today's products incorporate digital signal processing-based functions that it's tempting to start viewing these functions as commodities.
(More)
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|