In This Issue Special Focus on Logic
DSP Solutions
Wireless
Memory
Mixed-Signal and Analog
Business News
|
Analog and mixed-signal components moving up on the design priority list
Just a few years ago, the analog and mixed-signal functions of a system often were treated as second priorities after the digital, central processing (CPU) section was designed. Today, however, highly competitive markets and tight design windows mean designers must place increased emphasis on optimizing every system area up front to produce winning designs. Sophisticated and highly integrated analog and mixed-signal components are key enablers for many end equipments throughout various stages of their life cycle. As products become more mature, optimization of the analog and mixed-signal circuits to drive lowest cost becomes vital for success in a crowded marketplace. As the world's No. 1 supplier of Digital Signal Processing Solutions, Texas Instruments provides designers with not only the industry's most popular and powerful digital signal processors (DSPs) but also the leading analog and mixed-signal parts that are crucial for building tomorrow's systems. TI enables smart modems The competitive modem market serves as a good example of the path electronic markets typically follow, from a scattered collection of many off-the-shelf discrete components to a partitioning of highly integrated digital and mixed-signal sections. Early on, modems didn't get much attention from consumers. As a result manufacturers primarily were focused on stimulating the market with products that focused on core technical issues like processor functionality and performance. Analog and peripheral functionality was designed secondarily. Early modems plodded along at 300 to 1200 bits per second (b/s), but despite the relative shortcomings of the technology, users caught on, and, as the market grew, OEMs were soon racing to integrate components and optimize systems. Mid-life crises When the modem market was firmly established, designers began to look at existing systems for ways of taking performance to new levels. Analog and mixed-signal areas of the system were immediate targets that enabled the original hard-wired, unprogrammable modems to top out at 9.6 kbps, which was a vast improvement over 300 bps. TI and U.S. Robotics took modem technology to the next performance node at 14.4 kbps with TI's programmable DSP engine and highly integrated analog and mixed-signal functions. This harmonized implementation of digital, analog and mixed-signal circuits, along with sophisticated software that could compensate for the inherent shortcomings of twisted-pair copper wire, helped create one of the industry's first true DSP solutions. Using this technology as a foundation, the market turned several speed-node generations to reach today's 56K modems. Along the way, the modem's stand-alone microcontroller, bus-interface circuitry, logic and memory were all integrated into one TI custom DSP (cDSP). Moving beyond 56K Today, the modem market is set to move beyond 56K with new digital subscriber line (DSL) technology. With a performance range from 384 kbps up to several megabits per second, DSL holds great promise but will require completely optimized systems. This means the system's performance will suffer if designers concentrate only on the raw horsepower of an xDSL modem's DSP central processor. Certainly DSP power is critical, but the processor's effectiveness can be enhanced if mixed-signal functionality in the system's codec and the analog portions of the architecture are given proper up-front consideration. The codec's performance is especially critical to an xDSL modem's performance. Its sampling rate must be fast enough and its dynamic range precise enough for the codec to keep up with the extreme bandwidth demands of broadband connectivity. Without an advanced codec, even the industry's highest performing DSP won't substantially improve throughput. As the worldwide market leader in both DSPs and analog, TI is uniquely positioned to address both sides of the design equation. In fact, TI reached the No. 1 position in the analog/mixed-signal market by focusing design teams on high-growth potential markets like wireless, hard disk drive and modems. More importantly, TI's accelerated drive to develop mass market catalog DSP and analog solutions will enable a wide range of emerging markets powered by TI's DSPS technology. In due time, xDSL will force the industry through another mid-life optimization stage as designers move from today's early adoption architectures into future, more innovative DSL technology. TI's history as the industry's leading supplier of DSP Solutions -- including the best-selling, highly programmable DSPs and complementary analog and mixed-signal technology -- gives designers the tools to face the technical challenges that lie ahead.
Portions of this column were excerpted from Harry Davoody's February column in Analog Avenue. Analog Avenue is an EDTN publication that can be found on-line at
|
By Harry Davoody, Vice President of Mixed-Signal DSP Solutions
