DSP has high performance for compute-intensive signal processing applications

Cadence Design Systems has announced the availability of the new Cadence Tensilica Fusion G3 digital signal processor (DSP). It is a multi-purpose, high-performance DSP ideal for compute-intensive system-on-chip (SoC) designs. The DSP is exceptionally easy to program and ideal for use in automotive, consumer, internet-of-things (IoT) and industrial applications that combine intensive audio, imaging, communications, radar and embedded DSP computation. “As we continue to broaden our customer base, we are solving a wider range of SoC challenges. The flexibility of the new Tensilica Fusion G3 DSP is perfect for customers running a diverse set of software applications,” stated Steve Roddy, senior group director of product marketing for Tensilica in the IP Group at Cadence. “With advanced development tools including auto-vectorisation and extensive library support, the Tensilica Fusion G3 DSP provides our customers with an easy development flow and higher performance out-of-the-box for their next-generation applications. Even those with extensive floating-point performance requirements can quickly port existing code to the Tensilica Fusion G3 DSP with the optional Vector Floating-Point unit.” It is ideal for more compute-intensive applications including radar, imaging and mid to high-end audio pre/post-processing. It delivers this performance with quad 32-bit integer MACs and quad single-precision 32-bit floating-point MACs. “Cadence has long supplied function-specific DSPs for audio, imaging/vision and baseband signal-processing workloads. In fast-evolving markets like automotive and IOT, however, where DSP requirements are known to be changing, a narrowly-focused DSP is not always the best choice,” said Mike Demler, senior analyst of The Linley Group. “In these markets, there is an emerging demand for high performance, multi-purpose DSP IP which supports a wider range of data types and operations, including both fixed and floating point. A single, extensive, DSP instruction set architecture (ISA) that handles many different compute-intensive signal processing tasks, can future-proof SOC designs in fast changing markets.”