Adaptive signal processor ramps up to 2.5GHz

Intrinsity has developed a 2.5GHz version of its flagship product, the FastMath Adaptive Signal Processor.

Intrinsity has developed a 2.5GHz version of its flagship product, the FastMath Adaptive Signal Processor.

The original FastMath processor received the Microprocessor Report Analysts' Choice Award for Best Extreme Processor of 2002.

The faster speed version offers even more performance on real-time, maths-intensive applications.

The introduction of the 2.5GHz FastMath widens Intrinsity's lead on these high-speed signal-processing problems, executing more than 688,000 1024-point FFTs per second.

Intrinsity has also developed a 2.5GHz version of the FastMIPS processor, extending the company's performance lead in general-purpose embedded applications.

"Intrinsity's Fast14 technology continues to pay off as it sets enviable benchmarks for FastMath's architecture", noted Max Baron, Principal Analyst with In-STAT/MDR.

"The announcement of the 2.5GHz FastMath processor confirms MDR's prediction that Intrinsity's design team had even more headroom in its products.

At 2.5 GHz, FastMath's coprocessor employing 16 engines can provide performance comparable to that of 400 similar engines running at 100MHz".

FastMath processor samples are available today in 1.5 and 2.0GHz speeds.

The 2.5GHz version will sample to customers on a limited basis in December with general sample availability in Q2 of 2004 and production shipments in Q3 of 2004.

"Our customers have asked for power-efficient, peak-performance processors for real-time systems", stated Paul Nixon, President and CEO of Intrinsity.

"FastMath products provide the performance to replace inflexible hardwired solutions with easily programmed, software-based designs to meet the signal processing challenges of 3G basestations, machine vision, and other maths-intensive systems".

Intrinsity has also released samples and pricing schedules for the 1GHz, FastMath-LPT processor, with production shipments in Q2 of 2004.

The pin-compatible FastMath-LP has been designed to deliver optimum maths performance per watt, taking advantage of Intrinsity's Fast14T Technology to achieve both high performance and low power.

The 1GHz FastMath-LP processor has a typical power dissipation below 6W, delivering more than 275,000 1024-point FFTs per second.

"The FastMath-LP delivers more than twice the performance of the nearest programmable competitor at 40% less power", stated Nixon.

"The LP product family focuses on meeting customer needs for peak signal processing performance in a constrained cooling environment".

The Intrinsity FastMath/FastMIPS processor evaluation kits are currently available and consist of a complete development environment with extensive signal processing libraries to speed software development for the FastMath processor's matrix and vector instruction extensions.

The development kits also include library source code and evaluation copies of Green Hill's Multi and Wind River's Tornado integrated development environments.

FastMIPS, FastMath and FastMath-LP processors are designed with Intrinsity's Fast14 Technology and manufactured in the TSMC 0.13-micron LV process.

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