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BDTI Releases Benchmark Results for CoreWorks DSP Engine By BDTI, 1/21/2009 BDTI has released BDTI DSP Kernel Benchmarks™ results for the SideWorks signal processing engine from CoreWorks, a Portugal-based vendor of licensable silicon intellectual property. SideWorks is a licensable DSP accelerator targeting cost and power-sensitive applications such as multimedia and communications.  The core is both configurable (i.e., hardware resources included in a specific implementation are selected prior to fabrication) and reconfigurable (i.e., the movement of data and some aspects of execution unit functionality are programmable at run time).  SideWorks is not designed to run as a stand-alone processor; it is intended to be coupled to a general-purpose “host” processor that manages program flow and data input/output.  For this reason, BDTI’s benchmark results are implemented on a SideWorks core coupled to CoreWorks’ “FireWorks” CPU core. (More)

BDTI Releases Benchmark Results for Sandbridge SB3500 By BDTI, 1/21/2009 BDTI has released the first independent benchmark results comparing the performance of the Sandbridge “Sandblaster” SB3500 multi-core DSP chip to that of massively parallel chips, high-performance DSP processors, and FPGAs. Sandbridge Technologies, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company that sells multi-core chips targeting mobile 3G and 4G baseband and multimedia processing.  The SB3500 chip includes three DSP cores along with an ARM core; each of the DSP cores supports four-way multithreading and 16-way SIMD operations. The SB3500 is implemented in a 65 nm process, and is available with the DSP cores running at either 500 or 600 MHz. The 500 MHz chip costs $25 in 1K quantities; pricing for the 600 MHz chip has not yet been disclosed. (More)

Evaluating and Choosing Application Processors for Connected Devices By BDTI, 1/21/2009 “Connected devices” make up much of the buzz in consumer electronics these days.  They are the closest thing to a “killer app” there is—but what exactly are they?  All connected devices provide some sort of connection to the ‘net, many provide multimedia functionality, and more often than not, they’re for mobile use.  But despite these common characteristics, connected devices span a wide range of features and functionality, from netbooks to smartphones. (More)

Jeff Bier's Impulse Response — Soused Signals By Jeff Bier, 1/21/2009 So I’m sitting at the Las Vegas airport last week, on my way home from CES, trying to get some work done on my laptop—but I can’t. Why? Because there’s a (self-confessed) drunk CES attendee pacing back and forth in front of me, talking LOUDLY on his phone about his many brilliant observations, which include, for example, how insightful he is, and how impressed he was with the, um, aspect ratio of the porn star he came across at a bar earlier in the day.  Approximately every eighth word is an expletive. (More)