Motorola develops new signal technology

Electronic News, April 8, 1996 by Crista Hardie

Austin, Texas--Taking bold steps in the signal processing arena, Motorola's wireless group has developed what it calls Vector Communications Processor (VeCOMP) technology as an alternative to solutions that use multiple digital signal processors (DSPs), and a possible competitor for Intel's upcoming P55C multimedia processor, the Pentium Pro MMX.

Using a PowerPC RISC processor as the heart of the technology, Motorola--separately from PowerPC partner IBM--is touting VeCOMP as a "performance breakthrough" in wireless communications systems.

Motorola said it will map out a product release schedule over the next three months, targeting a 1997 rollout. The VeCOMP processor will initially be aimed at wireless systems--base station transceivers and voice compression/decompression in the network--but the company said it will keep an eye toward the multimedia potential, as well, in areas like videoconferencing, where VeCOMP would compete with Intel and others.

VeCOMP is based on a vector processing architecture known as single-instruction, multiple data (SIMD), which has primarily been used as an expensive accelerator in supercomputers. While a conventional processor operates on a single data sample at a time, a SIMD processor operates on multiple data samples simultaneously.

Until now, SIMD technology was too expensive for mainstream applications because it required heavy-duty system input/output (I/O) bandwidth, said Charlie Ashton, marketing and systems engineer for Motorola's semiconductor group. To handle the heavy data flow, Motorola matched the I/O memory to the I/O subsystem, and put it on the same chip with a PowerPC core to handle high-level code and a vector engine for compute-intensive routines.

"It's a concept that hasn't been widely exploited before. It's fairly complicated, but the payoff is significant. We're seeing a lot of customer interest," said Mr. Ashton. "This is the first time this level of performance is available at this price."

By combining the PowerPC core with a vector processor, Motorola hopes to extend the reach of the PowerPC into signal processing areas, in addition to the number of embedded applications it already targets--including desktop and notebook PCs, servers and high-volume consumer products.

According to one analyst, with the right software, VeCOMP could go just about anywhere digital signal processors (DSPs) go. Will Strauss of Forward Concepts called VeCOMP an "aggressive move by Motorola.

"The combination of the PowerPC base and a vector processor makes it a super signal processing chip--but it can do other things," said Mr. Strauss.