TI ups performance ante on new DSPs by tenfold

Electronic News, Feb 3, 1997 by Peter Brown

Houston--Attempting to change the face of the digital signal processing (DSP) world, Texas Instruments will this week roll out a 1,600-MIPS (1.6-BOPS), 200MHz fixed-point DSP--leapfrogging the performance level of any existing DSP by tenfold and creating new possibilities for DSP applications.

In addition, the device has been well received by more than a dozen DSP software and board vendors who have rallied behind TI and the device, calling it one of the most significant events in DSP history.

Dubbed the TMS320C6201, the DSP is available now and will be the initial member of a planned family of standard 1,600-MIPS DSP engines rolled out by TI in the coming years. The DSP features 1 megabit of on-chip RAM, 16-bit host access port, a glueless interface to SDRAM, SRAM and SBRAM, two enhanced buffered serial ports, dual datapaths, 16-bit multipliers, 3.3V tolerant I/Os and two 32-bit timers.

"We definitely wanted to hit the mainstream market with this DSP and with this jump in performance, cost-effectiveness and easy-to-use design we think we will have people biting at the bit to use this engine," said Ray Simar, chief architect of the 'C6x DSP and senior member of the technical staff for DSP at TI's Semiconductor group. "We expect to put the 'C6x in the hands of a very broad pool of application programmers, most of whom will need only a very basic understanding of the chip's architecture."

Using a very long instruction word (VLIW) architecture--what TI calls VelociTI--and manufactured on a 0.25-micron CMOS process, the 2.5-volt DSP features an enhanced C compiler enabling designers to shorten time-to-market as well as allow unlimited possibilities for different applications generated from different vendors, Mr. Simar said.

"This is the most powerful DSP chip that has ever been introduced," said Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts, a DSP and multimedia market research firm based in Tempe, Ariz. "This in the DSP world is equivalent to when Intel rolled out its x86 architecture. It is just that big. Applications that have never used or thought to have used DSPs will now be able to use this device. This will raise people's awareness that there must be something to this DSP thing, that it's not just like Windows 95. It's real, it's powerful and it's on the move."

Mr. Strauss said Forward Concepts predicts the DSP market will have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent. With TI gaining market share in the industry in the last three years, this announcement will make it four in a row for the Dallas-based company, he added.

TI also plans to integrate its 0.18-micron TImeline Technology (EN, May 27, 1996) to develop a fixed-point 2,000-MIPS, 250MHz DSP sometime in 1998, the company added. Future plans for a floating-point 2,000-MIPS engine are in the works for 1998 as well, Mr. Simar said.

Meanwhile, DSP board and software vendors have already given support to the TMS320C6201 and have been taking orders for 'C6201 products before it was even released--including many OEMs who have never used DSPs before. These DSP board and software companies include ViaDSP, D2 Technologies, DSP Software Engineering, Ariel, HotHaus Technologies, Eonic Systems, Go DSP, Signals and Software, DSP Research, Loughborough Sound Systems, Innovative Integration, White Mountain DSP, Pentek and Spectrum Signal Processing.

"This is a tremendously interesting device," said Barry Jinks, president and CEO of Spectrum Signal Processing. "This is an increase in performance like no one has ever seen and will have implications on the market like no one has ever seen as well. We will see all kinds of new markets that may not have considered a DSP an option start to want to work with this DSP, which is good for TI and is good for us."

The 'C6201 is priced at $96 in quantities of 25,000 units. This, according to TI, is a cost-effective offering in systems requiring multiple DSPs. Instead of running one DSP per one 56k modem, an OEM can use only the TI 'C6201 and run more than 20 56k modems, said Henry J. Wiechman, DSP product marketing manager for application specific products at TI's Semiconductor group.

Go DSP will supply tools and simulators for the 'C6x and sees great possibility for this device having many opportunities to improve bandwidth on the Internet, said Greg Da Silva, Go DSP's president and CEO.. "I think that with 1,600 MIPS, you have any option in front of you and I think TI will spin off other variations to reach other markets as well. You can attack any variation of devices from gaming systems to telecommunications with 1,600 MIPS," Mr. Da Silva said.

According to Paul Houlihan, Eonic Systems' VP of U.S. operations, Belgium-based Eonic has experienced a frenzy of companies wanting to license its DSP real-time operating system for use in TI's 'C6x DSP.

"This clearly changes various market segments in the electronics world for the very reason you are no longer limited to using multiple DSPs which expand board space. You can now use one DSP, have 10 times the performance and it will cost you less," said Mr. Houlihan. "We are seeing customers who have ignored our calls for nine months, start calling and frantically wanting our (DSP) OS because it will run with this DSP."