DSP developer's kit released

To speed the prototyping of DSP applications, Texas Instruments has released a hardware/software developer's kit for its family of nine DSP C6000 chips. The kit can save engineers more than six person-months of development work, according to the company.

Programmable chips are being lauded as the way to cut time to market and preserve flexibility in scanner designs. In contrast to the hard-wired designs of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), these chips, called digital signal processors (DSPs), are software controlled, providing the ability to change scanner capabilities and to upgrade installed systems with software.

Texas Instruments had until recently concentrated the C6000 family on broadband communications and wireless handsets, but opportunities in real-time image processing have led the company to expand its focus. To boost DSP performance in imaging applications, Texas Instruments wrote special instructions for its next-generation C6000 DSP core, the 600-MHz C64X. The instructions, along with the C64X's increased processing power, will boost imaging performance as much as 15 times over that of the existing C62X. Volume production of the C64X is slated for midyear. An imaging developer's kit based on the C64X is scheduled for introduction later this year.