Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: IDT | Subject: 70K2000BR PPS
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 06 July 2006
Preprocessing switch speeds DSP
bandwidths
An advanced semiconductor device integrates an innovative suite of byte- and packet-level manipulation capabilities designed to offload DSPs of specific bandwidth-intensive tasks.
Integrated Device Technology has developed the industry's first off-the-shelf preprocessing switch (PPS) for digital signal processor clusters Optimised for wireless baseband processing applications and utilising the Serial RapidIO interconnect, the IDT 70K2000BR PPS is an advanced semiconductor device integrating an innovative suite of byte- and packet-level manipulation capabilities designed to offload DSPs of specific bandwidth-intensive tasks
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 12 Apr 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
IDT joins Texas in crossbar low-voltage logic
IDT and Texas Instruments have entered a co-operative agreement to become alternate supply sources of 3.3V crossbar low-voltage technology (CBTLV) bus switch devices.
IP coprocessors provide flexible search width
IDT has released its first commercially available Internet protocol coprocessor product portfolio that enables up to OC-768 wire speed to support ever-increasing packet processing requirements.
This offload can accelerate each DSP within a cluster by up to 20%, thereby enabling the processors to focus on other compute-intensive functions related to meeting the requirements of next-generation wireless infrastructure design.
The PPS is the first in a series of forthcoming IDT products designed to offer a complete data-acceleration solution for DSPs and other key components in wireless baseband processing applications, allowing customers to create scalable, flexible and cost-effective solutions.
As the wireless infrastructure evolves toward higher performance 3G systems and beyond, designers are facing an increasingly complex set of operations and escalating computation requirements.
Further reading
Clock generators aim at networking
IDT has expanded its clock-management portfolio with the introduction of a new clock generator family ideally suited for high-performance communications and networking applications.
Eight-port programmable voice access solution
Intersil and IDT have developed a new space- and cost-saving high-density eight-port (HD8) voice access solution for enterprise markets.
Bus switches route data signals up to 500MHz
IDT has expanded its QuickSwitch bus switch family for the enterprise/carrier-class and access infrastructure markets.
For example, basestation designs must process more carriers and sectors per basestation to deliver significant cost reductions, while allowing sufficient flexibility and scalability to allow for efficient reuse across applications and market segments.
Functions such as within-packet manipulation and summing and multiplexing of channels can consume large amounts of system resources and add latency to the system.
One option that designers have considered is generic switches supplemented with an FPGA or ASIC, along with additional DSP compute cycles, in an attempt to achieve comparable data manipulation and distribution capabilities.
However, cost and design complexity resulting in a delayed time to market are typically associated with FPGA or ASIC implementations.
Moreover, implementing full Serial RapidIO ports and logical stacks onto an FPGA or ASIC requires a significant gate count, thereby making home-grown technology an inefficient switch-core solution.
The IDT PPS provides a compelling solution, integrating traditional data manipulation implementations with the switch fabric, and enhancing efficiency by offering tailored functionality designed to offload the DSP of low-level processing, thus reducing or eliminating the requirements for FPGA/ASIC implementations.
These functions include within-packet and within-sample manipulations, as well as an integrated DMA capability and the ability to sum packets across multiple input sources.
The offload of low-value processing enables the DSP to focus on higher-value algorithms, allowing customers to deliver higher proprietary value against competitors at like or reduced costs.
The DSP cluster is also able to achieve increased channels or users supported and reduced overall power consumption for a given capacity.
By integrating the summation operations, the PPS allows a reduction in overall component count, as systems typically require a separate component dedicated to this task.
The PPS also provides robust performance to meet the application requirements, with internal bandwidth approaching 100Gbit/s in support of baseband processing or other DSP cluster applications.
In addition, the IDT PPS offers support for system synchronisation issued on the input and output operations.
This function simplifies the operation of complex RF-baseband systems, allowing for a smooth and efficient transition from TDM-style architectures to "TDM-like" or pure packet-based systems.
Offering the industry's highest port count, the IDT PPS offers 40 bidirectional Serial RapidIO links with a high degree of configurability, including 10 ports in 4x width, or up to 22 ports in 1x width, or a combination of 4x and 1x ports.
Each port is independently programmable for 1.25, 2.5 or 3.125Gbaud transmission speed, as well as short-haul (chip-to-chip) or long-haul (backplane) transmission distances.
In mid-July, IDT will begin providing the PPS mounted on an ATCA-compatible evaluation board.
Based on the AMC profile, the board is tailored for baseband processing demonstrations, showcasing the PPS device with four of the Texas Instrument TCI6482 DSPs (with follow-on option for the TCI6455 DSPs) and providing sufficient software for rapid setup, initialisation, and on-site evaluation of the PPS capabilities.
The board enables realistic case studies that allow for moving tasks and operations from the DSPs to the PPS and observing the system benefits.
In addition to the evaluation board and associated hardware, IDT provides a robust library of software tools that offer designers the ability to execute a wide range of simulations, and support board and system evaluations based on simplified RF and DSP card traffic models.
These device models include standard switch and PPS modes, allowing system designers the ability to model the benefits of the preprocessing capabilities through the manipulation of a vast range of key parameters, including preprocessing functions, port count, port speed, packet length and switch utilisation.
The simulation tools are latency-accurate, and use the actual device API and GUI.
• IDT: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
