VLIW Processors Tap into Internet Audio/Visual

Electronic News, Nov 13, 2000 by Mohammad Ayub-Khan

Will DSP and MPUs be able to handle the content being generated on the Web?

Virtually every conceivable home appliance will eventually be connected to the Internet, and as farfetched as it may sound, even the refrigerator and the washing machine will be linked to the Internet. Television will become even more interactive for the consumer. By clicking a remote-control button, the consumer can respond to commercials and obtain more product information. Or if he or she is watching a sporting event such as football, the viewer can access the biography of a player or group of players.

Next generations of consumer electronics systems will also include programmable DVD subsystems so that the consumer can access both video and audio from the Internet, not only for entertainment purposes, but also to conduct business and personal communications through video conferencing and video phone applications via the Internet.

These systems will also provide the consumer with Internet-connected home surveillance and remote control of home operations such as unlocking the front door to allow authorized people into the home or premises. Hence, information can come directly from the Internet or the consumer can transmit information using home networking via a home gateway. In short, home appliances such as the TV, set-top boxes, DVD, home surveillance, and telephony are becoming what can best be described as Internet aware.

Multifunction, Multimode

Consumer electronics systems like these are multifunction and multimode. The linchpin for this versatility is the design scalability offered by a programmable VLIW media processor. One basic design serves as a sample application, which in turn acts as the base for adding different modes of operation. For example, the system engineer and developer can include in a video phone design such features as an address book, a privacy mode and picture frame rate control.

In effect, the system engineer can alter the behavior of his or her design just by changing the software. This design latitude is vital for complying with today's consumer market demands for more functionality and to meet the challenges of evolving standards. A programmable VLIW media processor allows designers and developers to differentiate each and every design based on software. For example, consumer electronics OEMs can develop a single basic system design to comply with Japanese, European, and U.S. standards based on different software. This way, the OEM can have a global product, rather than three geographic products. As a result of this software-based design flexibility, consumer electronics OEMs can reduce manufacturing costs and have a quicker time-to-market.

An opposite design philosophy is to utilize conventional rigid MPU and DSP architectures as the basis for these emerging consumer electronics system designs. These particular designs are based on inflexible hardware and time-consuming low-level assembly language development. Consequently, this kind of design escalates development time and limits the flexibility and scalability required to easily design-in a richness of feature sets increasingly being demanded by the consumer masses.

Also, the system engineer must take into consideration the real-time nature of his or her design. Unlike other applications, which may not be as time-sensitive, real-time media demands a streaming data flow involving billions of computations every second. Recently developed efficient algorithms reduce the total number of computations required. But they are only time-saving if the processor has the software capability to perform the algorithm in an optimal fashion.

DSPs specially designed for an algorithmic function may be utilized. DSPs have overcome the computational hurdle that inhibits the use of RISC or CISC processors. However, specialized DSPs are not as versatile in supporting different media types. Also, they do not offer solutions for complex systems, where balancing between various concurrent applications is critical.

On the other hand, VLIW media processing is designed to handle computationally intensive algorithms such as a DSP, while still optimizing overall system performance. A VLIW media processor can execute many instructions in parallel, all in the same clock cycle. Together with its software programming, a VLIW processor is the best answer for compute-intensive audio/video consumer electronics applications.

VLIW processing touts enormous compute power at very low chip area and low power required for these designs compared to superscalar architectures. The general field of DSP and multimedia processing has always been an area of enormous computational requirements and low power consumption. However, general DSP and conventional [micro]Ps don't provide designers with the right levels of price/performance to meet cost and data processing objectives of these emerging consumer electronics applications.

Courier of Audio/Visual Information

Designs of these highly advanced consumer electronics systems are incorporating connection to the Internet. The Internationa1 Telecommunications Union (ITU) Recommendation H.323 is the standard for multimedia communication over the Internet. It defines the components, procedures, and protocols necessary to provide audio/visual and data communication. This H.323 standard can be used in any packet-switched network, regardless of the ultimate physical layer.