Adaptive processor speeds low-power embedded tasks: News from Intrinsity

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Intrinsity has developed a new FastMath adaptive signal processor product it claims delivers the highest programmable performance for power-constrained embedded applications. The company has also revealed production pricing for the award-winning FastMath and FastMIPS processors at 2 and 1.5GHz. The FastMath-LP device uses the same pinout and delivers the same functionality as the FastMath processor, but is optimised for applications that require lower-cost, cooler thermal solutions.

At less than 5.5W typical power consumption, the 1GHz FastMath-LP processor performs 3 billion multiply-accumulate operations per second per watt, delivering the best power/performance ratio for maths-intensive embedded applications.

The 2GHz FastMath processor (13.5W typical power) continues to be the company's flagship product for maximum-performance applications, and the 2GHz FastMIPS (8W typical power) delivers multigigahertz performance for general-purpose applications that require high bandwidth and large caches.

Both processors include over 1Mbyte of cache memory, 4Gbyte/s of RapidIO bandwidth, and a 3.2Gbyte/s DDR memory interface.

The FastMath processor received "2002 processor of the year" honours from InStat/MDR, and early customers have validated the FastMath processor's performance advantages on real-time, maths-intensive applications.

The successful completion of these early-stage sample evaluations with key customers/partners marks the beginning of general availability of samples (2 and 1.5GHz) and evaluation kits for the FastMath and FastMIPS products.

Processor pricing for 10K quantities ranges from $99 for the 1.5GHz FastMIPS processor to $349 for the 2GHz FastMath processor.

The FastMath-LP product pricing will be announced when the device begins sampling in Q4 of 2003.

With the availability of the FastMath and FastMIPS devices, Intrinsity is now disclosing preliminary information for the next products on the roadmap.

The company's proprietary Fast14 technology for the design of high-speed processors is able to achieve both high performance and low power.

At 1GHz, the FastMath-LP processor's typical power dissipation is below 5.5W, delivering over 50,000 1024-point FFTs per watt.

The device will be manufactured in the TSMC 0.13-micron LV process.

"Most of our customers have asked for the highest-performance FastMath device we can deliver, and our product roadmap will continue to maintain performance leadership through both architectural enhancements and migration to next-generation manufacturing technologies", stated Paul Nixon, CEO of Intrinsity.

"The FastMath-LP processor addresses additional customer requests for the highest performance within a constrained power envelope and is designed to offer the highest performance-per-watt of any software-programmable alternative".

Intrinsity's FastMIPS, FastMath and FastMath-LP microprocessors are supported by the extensive family of MIPS development tools.

Additionally, several 3rd-party development tools vendors provide optimised versions for the Intrinsity processors, and Intrinsity provides extensive signal processing libraries to speed software development with FastMath's matrix and vector instruction extensions.

Intrinsity FastMath/FastMIPS processor evaluation kits are available now and consist of a complete development environment including library functions, source code, an evaluation copy of the Green Hills Multi integrated development environment and extensive documentation.

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News Release from: Intrinsity Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 13 May 2003

Adaptive processor speeds low-power embedded tasks

Intrinsity has developed a new FastMath adaptive signal processor product it claims delivers the highest programmable performance for power-constrained embedded applications.

Note: Readers of the Editor’s free email newsletter will have read this news when it was announced. . It’s free!

News Release from: Intrinsity
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 13 May 2003