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Technical Release: World's Most Powerful DSP Redefines Industry Landscape Business Wire Release: New TI Chip Blitzes Internet at Speed of 1.6 Billion Instructions Per Second Fact Sheet: Texas Instruments TMS320C6201 Digital Signal Processor Editorial Backgrounder: Powerful New Processor Eliminates Need for Hardware Design Editorial Backgrounder: TI's TMS320C6x DSP Family Enables Wireless Pico-Stations Editorial Backgrounder: Astonishingly Powerful Signal Processor Speeds Transmission of Information Enables Faster Modems in a Smaller Footprint What the Industry Analysts Say What others are saying about the news
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Astonishingly Powerful Signal Processor Speeds Transmission of Information Enables Faster Modems in a Smaller FootprintData communications design engineers will soon be able to increase the number of modems they can fit inside a pooled-modem server system by more than ten times, thanks to a new ultra-powerful microprocessor chip from Texas Instruments. TI's new TMS320C6x ('C6x) generation of digital signal processors (DSPs) gives developers the computing power needed to implement new technologies like xDSL (Digital Subscriber Loop). Internet users will now be able to download data, pictures and even video at speeds more than 120 times faster than today's fastest modems. At 1600 million-instructions-per-second (MIPS), the 'C6x generation performance eclipses that of all previously available DSP technologies, providing more than ten times the performance of any other DSP. The unprecedented performance of the new processor promises to enable solutions to the Internet's most pressing problem: how to accommodate the rapidly increasing volume of data flowing between on-line users and remote access service providers. On-line Access ExplodingThe explosive growth of data communications, especially the use of the Internet, continues to be widely heralded throughout the business and consumer communities. Both the cause and the result of this attention is a crushing rush by computer users to "get on line," connecting to remote access service providers that link users with a variety of on-line services, including the increasingly important world of electronic mail. According to Intelliquest, 21 million new users will log onto the Internet in 1997. The data transmission problems associated with handling this glut of new on-line users has prompted numerous pundits to speculate that the Internet is "about to crash" under the weight of the associated volume of all this data. Such heavy use of on-line services is a clear indicator that a solution at the access node is needed to mitigate the data throughput congestion problem. Heavy-duty MIPS Solve On-line Access CongestionTI's 'C6x generation of DSPs are microprocessors specifically designed to be extremely efficient at moving data the primary requirement for addressing the Internet's data glut. 'C6x DSPs have ten times more MIPS performance, more than any other DSP in history. MIPS are the key measure of a chip's capacity for executing signal processing tasks. Furthermore, because DSPs are highly optimized for data communications, it typically takes four to six MIPS from general purpose processors such as Intel's Pentium to equal only one DSP MIPS. The huge number of MIPS in the 'C6x generation DSPs give system designers the raw horsepower they need to develop more modems in less space with faster on-line connectivity, all at lower cost-per-modem than older systems. For example, the power of a single 'C6x generation DSP can implement 10-15 V.34 modems per DSP at a cost of approximately $6-9 per channel. Previous generation DSPs offered $18 per channel. This translates to ten times the performance at 50 percent lower cost-per-channel. For on-line services, the new systems enabled by the 'C6x feature more modem channels per device in less space than ever before. This translates into lower system cost, smaller system size, reduced power consumption, plus higher quality modems with lower bit-error rates. Not only can the 'C6x generation DSPs implement more modems on a single chip than ever before possible, but the modems will use spare MIPS to execute sophisticated data transmission quality improvement algorithms to cancel line noise, correct transmission errors in real-time and even use stochastic chaos-theory-based algorithms to recover data bits that would otherwise be lost forever. While no system or modem can change the physics that restrict telephone line bandwidth, a chip as powerful as the 'C6x can effectively stretch that bandwidth to perform in ways that lessen the physical limitations of the transmission medium, to provide better quality data transmission. More Data-Per-ChannelAnother equally significant use of 'C6x MIPS power is to implement highly-complex schemes for passing more data down a single transmission channel than currently possible. The need for MIPS grows exponentially as data rates increase, leaving designers with few choices for programmable solutions for high-data-rate communications. Methods such as cable modems, ISDN (integrated services digital network) and xDSL provide increasingly fast ways to transmit data to on-line users but either require fixed hardware or a very fast programmable processor. The first standardized form of the fastest of these new techniques is ADSL, a transmission technology that provides up to six megabits-per-second bandwidth from the RAS to the user, all over the existing telephone lines. ADSL data rates are 120 times faster than the existing fastest modems (28.8 kbps) and 50 times faster than ISDN (128 kbps) and can be implemented using a single 'C6x generation DSP, all in software. Software Solution Means Flexible Changes
While other hardware-based technologies can also help increase
the number of modems that can fit in a smaller space and can implement
techniques such as ADSL, only TI's 'C6x generation DSPs can accomplish
these things in software. The implication for system designers
is that whereas systems based on hardware-only chips require many
months to implement even the simplest of changes, systems developed
on a software basis using the 'C6x can be altered in minutes.
Such alterations are a fundamental and inevitable part of the
data communications industry, whose standards and protocols are
frequently revised. Not only does the 'C6x generation improve
performance and reduce cost, it brings a new level of fast time-to-market
capabilities under conditions of dramatically reduced risk for
system designers.
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