In this Issue New DSPs invigorate digital set-top boxes TI delivers customizable digital wireless baseband platform Third Parties pilot DSP Solutions into the mainstream New x2 modem chip sets speed OEM production Chip set supports FLEX messaging New link-layer added to 1394 product family PCI bus-to-cardbus controller complies with PC97 guidelines TI announces family of Universal Serial Bus interface chips |
New DSPs invigorate digital set-top boxesThe first single-chip DSP solution for decrypting, decoding and displaying digital video on a TV is now available from TI.
Specifically designed for digital set-top applications, the new TMS320AV7000 series of digital signal processors (DSPs) is compliant with the Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) and Digital Satellite System (DSS) standards used worldwide. The 'AV7000 series obsoletes an entire generation of set-top architectures that separate the CPU and transport functions from the audio/video decompression and graphics overlay functions. The 'AV7000 architecture integrates these functions along with the NTSC/PAL video encoder, reducing three components to one. Further reduction in system cost results from consolidating the multiple banks of memory required in the system into a single 16-Mbit synchronous DRAM. The first member of the 'AV7000 series, the TMS320AV7100, integrates a 16-bit/32-bit ARM7T™RISC microprocessor core licensed from Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. The 'AV7100 also integrates an advanced graphics accelerator, transport demultiplexer, conditional access and decryption modules, MPEG-2 video decoder, MPEG audio decoder, and NTSC/PAL video encoder with Macro- vision™copy protection. The 'AV7100 's transport demultiplexer, conditional access and decryption are optimized for DSS system requirements. Another device, the TMS320AV7110, integrates the same functions but has a DVB-optimized transport demultiplexer and can support externally the multiple conditional access and decryption implementations used by different service providers. The architecture of the new processors includes features targeted at three distinct needs of DVB- and DSS-compliant digital set-top boxes: greater integration and memory consolidation for reduced system cost; higher CPU performance for more sophisticated applications software; and advanced graphics acceleration for a more intuitive user interface. In addition to integrating three chips into one, the 'AV7000 architecture reduces costs through its Traffic Interface Manager (TIM). This consolidates the memory requirements of each on-chip function into a single bank of memory, providing the flexibility to dynamically allocate system resources. The ARM7T processor 's dual instruction set allows on-chip firmware to execute at the full 32-bit performance, while off-chip software can take advantage of the 16-bit mode to greatly reduce the application software memory size and still achieve excellent performance. The 40-MIPS ARM processor not only supports the TIM and transport demultiplex functions, but also provides over half of its processing power for application software. Combined with on-chip graphics acceleration, the processing performance enables instantaneous response to users. The graphics accelerator supports 256 colors, transparency, blending, sizing and positioning in multiple graphics windows that can be displayed and overlapped simultaneously, providing a larger viewing area for the video and more intuitive access to information on-screen. The processor performance and graphics capabilities position the 'AV7000 architecture well to support future data services currently evolving over the broadband networks. TMS320AV7100 sampling is planned for December and TMS320AV7110 sampling for February. Production for both devices is planned for 2Q97, with pricing below $45 in quantities of 100K. |
