DSP shrinks to fit handheld applications

Texas Instruments reckons its latest low-cost, low-power digital signal processor reduces PCB space requirements to one-third of competing devices.

Texas Instruments reckons its latest low-cost, low-power digital signal processor reduces PCB space requirements to one-third of competing devices.

The new TMS320C5405 16bit, fixed-point DSP is the industry's first such device available in a 7 x 7mm package, bringing DSP performance to systems with an emphasis on small size, low power consumption and affordability.

DSP-based mobile and other applications that will benefit from the C5405 are cellular phone attachments, hands-free kits, headsets, barcode readers, thermal printers and scanners and some hearing aids.

TI's new C5405 DSP delivers up to 80MMACs of real-time signal processing for about $5, bringing excellent performance for the price to small-scale end equipment.

The C5405 DSP offers the lowest standby power consumption of DSPs in its performance class (70-100MMACs); some 360 times lower than competing devices, minimising battery drainage when a system is idling.

"We are using TI's C5405 DSP in our revolutionary Jawbone adaptive headset for mobile phones".

"Texas Instruments is the only vendor in the market that offers a DSP with the functionality we need in the small package size our application demands".

"In our application the C5405 processes multiple audio channels to perform signal identification, adaptive noise subtraction, adaptive audio enhancement, echo cancellation and a variety of other tasks in real time", says Ira Gerson, Vice President, Technology, Aliph.

"The C5405 has an excellent combination of onboard peripherals, memory and low cost which allowed us to build a small and compact system solution".

Based on the popular TMS320C54x DSP core, on-chip features include 32Kbyte of RAM, two multichannel buffered serial ports (McBSPs), an 8bit host port interface (HPI) bus, two 16bit timers and a six-channel DMA controller.

The device has a footprint of just 49mm2, compared with 144mm2 for competing solutions - a 66% reduction of space.

Additional space savings result from the chip's reduced number of I/O leads, requiring fewer board traces.

"As personal, portable electronics continue to shrink, package size and power consumption are becoming increasingly important", said Raj Agrawala, TMS320C5000 Product Marketing Manager, TI.

"The C5405 answers these requirements, offering inexpensive DSP performance that helps TI customers create even smaller-scale, lighter-weight applications".

Support for the C5405 DSP enables developers to begin creating their products right away.

The device is code-compatible with other popular C54x DSPs, allowing developers to save engineering time by porting software from other systems.

Compatibility enables developers to use the TMS320C5416 DSP starter kit (DSK), a low-cost development platform that gives both experienced and novice designers an easy way to get started immediately with power-efficient product innovations.

Application development can also be launched with the software-compatible TMS320C5402 evaluation module (EVM) from Spectrum Digital, which provides a cost-effective, standalone platform for hardware prototyping and algorithm debugging.

Like other TI DSPs, the C5405 DSP is backed by TI's leadership eXpressDSP software and development tools, which includes Code Composer Studio, the world's most powerful integrated development environment (IDE) and tool suite for DSPs.

Other eXpressDSP elements include DSP/BIOS, a scalable real-time Kernel; the TMS320 DSP Algorithm Standard for application interoperability and reuse; and Reference Frameworks of design-ready code for getting started quickly.

In addition, TI's DSP third party network offers the industry's most complete base of algorithms, tools and other products for DSP system developers.

TI's C5405 DSP is sampling now, with volume production scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2004.

The device is available in a space-saving 7 x 7mm ball grid array (BGA).

Planned pricing is $5.20 per unit in quantities of 10,000 units.

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