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WirelessDevNet.com Press Release
Texas Instruments Redefines Mobile Application Design
HOUSTON, June 28 -- Continuing to help designers maximize battery life and reduce costs in portable applications, Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN - News; TI) announced today the availability of three new low-power digital signal processors (DSP) and new eXpressDSP(TM) power design tools that together enable developers to optimize power consumption to previously unattainable levels. Where other vendors can only show typical power consumption of core and memory, TI is the first company to "tell the rest of the power story" with design tools that show detailed and modular power information of a DSP chip core, memory and peripherals and a methodology for measuring power running under real-world conditions. The combination of the industry's lowest power DSPs and the essential tools to optimize power consumption and maximize battery life gives TI's customers the competitive edge they need when creating best-of-class portable, multimedia products. For more information, please see:
http://www.ti.com/powerefficientperformance .
New DSPs offer the Industry's Lowest Standby Power
The new TMS320C5503, TMS320C5507 and TMS320C5509A DSPs offer an ideal combination of low power, performance, memory and peripherals for mobile, portable and other low-power, real-time signal processing applications. These devices enable advanced low power consumption through:
-- The industry's lowest standby power (0.12 mW) -- 114x lower than
nearest competition
-- Very low core and memory operating power -- for example, 58 mW at
108 MHz
-- Dynamic frequency and voltage scaling
-- Multiple standby modes with ability to turn individual peripherals and
internal functional units on and off
-- Multiple SRAM options (64 KB, 128 KB, and 256 KB RAM) for efficient
code fit
The C5503 is optimized for low-cost, low-power devices such as portable biometric or medical devices and handheld wireless applications. The C5507 is for applications such as wireless gateways, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), GPS and wireless speakerphones and offers a 500 microseconds 10-bit ADC as well as USB 2.0 full-speed port for PC connectivity. The C5509A is optimized for multimedia-rich, mobile devices such as MP3 audio jukeboxes and infotainment devices and offers two MMC/SD ports, as well as a 500 microseconds 10-bit ADC and USB 2.0 full-speed port. Standard peripherals for all include three MCBSP ports, three timers, I2C bus, six-channel DMA, 16-bit EMIF, 16-bit EHPI and 36 GPIO. These are the first devices with integrated USB at this low a level of power consumption for this class of DSP.
Advanced Power Design Tools
Determining accurate power consumption early in the design process is essential for making the right tradeoffs in performance, peripherals activity and external memory use in order to maximize battery life and reduce cost. With the new eXpressDSP power design tools, TI will be the first to "tell the rest of the power story" by eliminating the guesswork of determining actual power consumption and giving developers previously inaccessible visibility into devices. These tools allow developers to consume only as much power as is actually necessary by dynamically turning off all peripherals and internal functional units when they are not needed and developers can now optimally configure devices based on accurate and detailed power consumption information, rather than blindly guess at how much power a device consumes. The four tools included in this eXpressDSP power design package are:
-- Power planning tools: These planning tools include an easy "how to"
application note and a spreadsheet for easy trial configurations.
These tools give detailed internal functional unit and peripheral
power consumption data specific to a particular DSP. Developers are
able to easily and quickly create trial configurations to determine
"net" power consumption for various memory and peripheral
combinations.
-- Power Manager in DSP/BIOS(TM): Through intimate integration with TI's
DSP/BIOS(TM) real-time kernel, and delivered to Code Composer
Studio(TM) (CCStudio) Integrated Development Environment via Update
Advisor, this software module enables developers to automatically
implement power saving strategies at an operating system level,
resulting in more efficient boot-time power savings, automatic
management of clock domains and sleep states, supervision and control
of power scaling and central registry management for power event
notifications.
-- Power Scaling Library: Delivered to CCStudio(TM) via Update Advisor,
this software tool implements an EVM320C5509A compatible power scaling
configuration that supports dynamic control of run-time core frequency
and voltage based on application mode and performance requirements.
It allows callbacks to user code before/after scaling operations to
accommodate voltage and frequency changes and supports query
operations to determine current frequency, voltage, supported
frequencies and scaling latencies.
-- LabView-based Power Measurement Tool from National Instruments:
Developers are now able to accurately profile power consumption based
on actual application behavior. They can visually measure and analyze
power by using the power measurement tool from National Instruments
connected to the EVM320C5509A evaluation module (EVM) from Spectrum
Digital or target prototypes. Measurements include total energy,
max/average power, CPU and memory, peripheral and I/O power usage.
Power/peripheral data can be viewed in tabular or graphical views
forward or backward through time, as well as saved for future use.
Pricing and Availability
The new TMS320C5000(TM) DSPs are sampling immediately with volume production slated for August 2004. Recommended pricing starts at $7.50 for the C5503, $10.50 for the C5507 and $16 for the C5509A (10,000 unit pricing). The eXpressDSP power design tools are available as follows:
Power planning tools: Power spreadsheet and power application note downloadable today from the web for free.
Power Manager in DSP/BIOS(TM) and Power Scaling Library: Included in CCStudio via Update Advisor. Beta versions available now with production in 4Q04. Free evaluation tools for CCStudio(TM) can be found at: Free Evaluation Tools
LabView-based Power Measurement Tool from National Instruments: Hardware and software available today for $885.
EVM320C5509A EVM -- Available in July 2004 from Spectrum Digital for $1495.
For a description of TI's new power design tools, new DSPs and a roadmap of C5000 devices, visit http://www.ti.com/powerefficientperformance .
Analyst and Real users comment on new DSPs and Power Design Tools
"TI has established a good, power-efficient architecture in the TMS320C55x family with the hooks built in for power management. What is brand new from TI, and perhaps to the entire industry, are the tools that allow designers to manage power under changing processor workload in their new portable applications. TI is providing designers visibility into managing the power in their designs that they have never had before."
Will Strauss, president, Forward Concepts
"Power is increasingly becoming a key concern. In some portable application spaces, I have seen that power has become even more important than performance. With the announcement from TI today, they are answering the system designer's questions when it comes to designing a power-efficient application. With the power spreadsheet to allow designers to plan for their power and the software that allows them to actually manage their power, TI is giving designers visibility into their power-efficient design, something that I have not seen from any other silicon vendor in the industry."
Markus Levy, president, EEMBC
SOMA Networks, Inc., a leading provider of Broadband Wireless Access solutions that cost-effectively deliver high-speed Internet access and voice services to the residential and small office market, chose TI's C5509A DSP for use in their W-CDMA based last-mile wireless system. "The combination of high performance and small form factor is perfect for the advanced wireless modem functionality required in the SOMAport(TM), our plug-and-play CPE device. The powerful computational ability of TI's new DSP has enabled SOMA to further increase the throughput rates of our wireless modem and continue to deliver market-leading broadband wireless performance."
Dr. Robin Grindley, director of engineering, SOMA Networks
"TI's impressive complete offering of new low-power C5000 DSPs and matched design tools couldn't come at a better time, especially since low power is becoming increasingly important. TI's second-generation C5000 Rev. 2.2 DSP chips add low leakage design, memory energy control, and voltage/frequency scaling to power management resources already employed in previous implementations. TI's innovation in the software domain provides developers tools to control consumed energy: a calculator allowing designers to estimate power consumption, and an enhanced SDK targeting TI's DSP/BIOS power management kernel capable of accepting run-time performance-level requests from applications."
Max Baron, principal analyst, In-Stat/MDR
"As part of our search for a new DSP, we were looking for the right combination of performance and features to compliment our new Half-Rate AMBE+2 vocoder in mobile radio applications. Our new AMBE+2 vocoder achieves excellent voice quality and robustness to background noise at only 2400 bps, and with its integrated error correction (FEC), it is very well suited for next generation digital radio systems. The C5509A is a perfect fit, which at 200 MHz delivers impressive performance, low standby power and the right amount of memory for a handheld wireless device."
Dr. John Hardwick, president, DVSI
"Power consumption is the leading issue for mobile applications. Customers need every possible approach to manage power budgets in this more than $6B chip market segment. New power design tools such as those being developed by TI will enable designers to manage power in a way tailored to each application."
Shyam Nagrani, principal analyst, iSuppli
"IPC, the world's leading provider of financial trading floor solutions, chose TI's TC5509A DSPs for our mission critical VoIP solution, a solution that enables the delivery of voice, data and video to the trading desk. Operating the C5509A at 200 MHz, as well as its low-power efficiency, enabled IPC to increase the number of voice channels we deliver, while the large amount of internal DSP memory improved the performance of our design."
Irwin Schildkraut, Principal Member Technical Staff,
IPC Information Systems, Inc.
Acronyms:
DMA: Direct Memory Access
EHPI: Enhanced Host Port Interface
EMIF: External Memory Interface
GPIO: General Purpose Input/Output
I2C: Inter-Integrated Circuit
MCBSP: Multi-Channel Buffer Serial Port
MMC/SD: Multimedia Card/Sony Disk
Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers' real-world signal processing requirements. In addition to Semiconductors, the company's businesses include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries.
Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at http://www.ti.com .
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