| FROM
THE EDITOR
This week we revisit digital signal processing
on FPGAs. A couple of weeks ago, we discussed tools and methodologies
for DSP implementation. This time, we take a look at the specialized
hardware that gives FPGAs their impressive performance advantage
over traditional processor-based DSP solutions. Beginning with
dedicated multipliers, and evolving into multiply-accumulate and
multi-function DSP blocks, the design of the DSP accelerator grows
steadily more sophisticated.
Thanks
for reading! If
there's anything we can do to make our publications more
useful to you, please let us know at: comments@fpgajournal.com
Kevin Morris – Editor
FPGA and Programmable Logic Journal
|
LATEST NEWS
December 14, 2004
Synplicity
Increases Market Share in the FPGA Synthesis Market in 2003;
Synplicity Share of the FPGA Synthesis Market Greater than
All Competitors Combined
Six
New NI Embedded System Modules Offer Higher Accuracy, Speed
and Density
Wavesat
First in with WiMAX Chips, but ABI Research Says Giants Closing
Fast
December 13, 2004
Aldec
Releases Active-HDL Actel Edition
Hardi
Electronics Unveils Second Generation ASIC Prototyping Platform
Altera's
First FPGA Lab in India Opens at the Indian Institute of Science
Actel
ProASIC Plus FPGAs Chosen By Monterey Bay Aquarium Research
Institute for Low-Power, High-Reliability Operation
FS2
Introduces Logic Navigator Trace and Debug Solutions for Atmel
FPGAs
Celoxica
Introduces PixelStreams Platform for Streaming Video Processing
IDT
Expands Industry-Leading Dual-Port and FIFO Product Families;
New Devices Represent Industry Firsts in Density, Performance
and Value-Added Features
Cypress
Ships WirelessUSB Sensor Network Development Kit
Celoxica
Upgrades ESL Design Portfolio
December 9, 2004
IEC
Seeking Proposals for DesignCon East Conference
Xilinx
Enables Instant Deployment of Aurora, Industry's Most Popular,
Scalable, Lightweight Serial Connectivity Protocol
December 8, 2004
Xilinx
Continues Focus on Wireless Market With Delivery of CPRI-Compliant
Reference Design
Altium
Adds Support for Latest Quartus II Release to Nexar
Jeda
Announces Spreadtrum Communications' Launch of 3G Standard
Chipset Using Jeda Technologies Verification Tool Set
|
|
Mad MACs
Who’s
Got the Best DSP Accelerators?
Maybe you saw them in science fiction movies when you were
a kid. Possibly your Hot Wheels toy car collection contained a few as
well. You may have even drawn your own on your school book covers. They
looked like normal race cars, but a single engine just would not do.
Sometimes four, six, or eight huge power plants graced the foredeck,
each with eight big straight pipes sticking out the sides like stocky
legs on some steel-bodied spider, complete with a Roots blower abdomen
and air scoop head. You were never able to understand quite how all those
engines might work together to make the car go fast, but the message
of plenteous performance was clearly conveyed by the visual impact of
this plethora of pipes and plenums.
A few years later, you were in engineering school and the magic spell
was broken. You learned that the complexities of coordinating so many
motors for the task of moving a single vehicle caused too many problems,
and the promised performance of parallel power plants fell forever into
the chasm of misguided engineering fantasies.
Today, however, the process repeats itself. We all know
that the performance bottleneck for most digital signal processing (DSP)
algorithms is the multiply operation. The most recognized benchmark of
DSP performance is, in fact, a measurement of the number of multiplies
and accumulates per second such as MMACs (Million multiply accumulates
per second) and GMACs (Giga Multiply Accumulates per second). DSP processors
sometimes have several multiply accumulate (MAC) units attached to a
high performance processor that runs the overall algorithm and sequences
the expensive multiply operations out to the available MACs. [more]
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Xilinx Virtex-4 LX25 Evaluation Kit from
Avnet
Electronics Marketing helps design engineers get
started
with the Xilinx Virtex-4 family. The kit features
a Virtex-4
XC4VLX25-FF668 FPGA surrounded by a rich set of peripheral devices and provides
an affordable and easy-to-use platform for evaluating and prototyping any Virtex-4
LX design. For a limited time, Avnet is offering the Virtex-4 LX25 Evaluation
Kit at a reduced price of $299.
Click here
to take
advantage of this limited-time discount.
|
Hire the best FPGA talent in the industry with
FPGA Journal Job Listings. Starting this month
you can reach 30,000 active FPGA professionals
by advertising your FPGA-related positions in Journal
Jobs.
Click
here for info.
|
FPGA Journal has
teamed with Demos on Demand™ to
provide streaming video demos from over 70
EDA, PLD and IP vendors to our readers. Programming
is comprised of in-depth product demos from
across the entire spectrum of IC design, from
ESL design entry through layout--as presented
by product managers, AEs, and other subject
matter experts.
More
info.
|
Find a better job. Browse FPGA
Journal’s new job listings to find challenging
and rewarding opportunities with the FPGA industry’s
top companies. Journal Jobs is specifically for
FPGA professionals – more of what you’re
looking for, less of what you’re not. Browse
now!
|
|
|
