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CEVA Unveils “Lite” Mobile Multimedia Platform By BDTI, 4/25/2007 In March CEVA unveiled “Mobile-Media-Lite” (MMLite), a family of multimedia solutions comprising licensable silicon IP and software. The family is aimed at low-end multimedia-enabled devices such as mobile TV players, portable multimedia players, and multimedia phones. CEVA also announced the first family member, the MM2200, a single-processor multimedia platform. (More)

Xilinx Spartan gets DSP By BDTI, 4/25/2007 In recent years, FPGA vendors have been aggressively pursuing high-performance signal processing applications. This month Xilinx broadened its target DSP markets by announcing a new lower-cost DSP-oriented FPGA family, Spartan-3A DSP. (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)

Case Study: Multi-Tiered Software Optimization By BDTI, 4/25/2007 While nearly all signal processing applications require some degree of software optimization, some applications require a sophisticated, multi-tiered optimization approach in order to meet their performance goals. (More)

Can ARM11 Handle DSP? By BDTI, 4/4/2007 Can ARM's latest core play the role of a DSP? Is it ready to take on video? BDTI's just-released benchmark results and analysis answer these questions. (More)

Stealth Startup RemSilicon Announces Massively Parallel Architecture By BDTI, 4/1/2007 On March 18th fabless semiconductor startup RemSilicon revealed its new massively parallel reconfigurable processor. The company joins a host of startups pursing a similar idea: chaining together large arrays of simple processing elements using novel interconnection schemes. (More)

Xilinx Unveils Two New Virtex-5 FPGAs By BDTI, 4/1/2007 This month Xilinx announced two new members of its Virtex-5 family of FPGAs. The devices will be implemented in a 65 nm process and share the same basic architecture as existing Virtex-5 devices. Unlike previous devices however, Xilinx has optimized the new Virtex-5 FPGAs for higher instead of lower power consumption. (More)

Case Study: Software Turns Green By BDTI, 4/1/2007 Vendors of signal processing technology are well aware of the impact power consumption can have on the success of a product, particularly in mobile devices where battery life is critical. But in recent months vendors have seen increased pressure to deliver lower power from an unlikely source. (More)

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response – Faster signal processing: a double-edged sword? By Jeff Bier, 4/1/2007 Recent years have seen a proliferation of architectures for digital signal processing. Running the gamut from general-purpose processors and application-specific SoCs to the more-recent DSP-enhanced FPGAs and multi-core processors, these architectures promise unprecedented DSP performance. This has left me wondering: Is more speed always a good thing? (More)