CEVA unveils its most flexible DSP platform yet
The firm's latest family of cores support a huge array of standards while slashing power consumption
Published: 21 February, 2012
READ MORE: CEVA | Processor | Standards | LTE
CEVA is seeking the role that ARM has in mobile processors, in its own DSP (digital signal processor) market. It aims to enable licensees of its DSP cores to challenge incumbents like Texas Instruments, by supporting as many wireless communications standards as possible. It has extended its reach with its new 'universal advanced communications engines', as it describes its CEVA-XC4000 family of programmable cores.
These are designed to help chip developers support new standards quickly, while preserving their investments in previous generation products for the cellular and broadcast sectors. So the XC4000 models maintain backward compatibility with previous CEVA communication processor cores, such as the XC321 and XC323. But they harness a new, single, low power DSP framework for all six processor designs, and for a whole array of standards.
The connections supported include LTE and even the upcoming LTE-Advanced, plus HSPA+, W-CDMA, TD-SCDMA, and GSM/GPRS/EDGE. For connectivity, there are all the Wi-Fi iterations including the new 11ac and Wi-Fi Direct, plus GNSS, Bluetooth and P2P. CEVA also supports most digital TV standards as well as white spaces, ZigBee, and the home networking protocols Multimedia over Coax, DSL, powerline communication and G.hn.
Each XC4000 processor supports variations from a single vector unit with 16 MACs to four vector units with 128 MACs. "Our customers can mix and match these different XC4000 processors to address a wide range of communications markets," the firm's director of product marketing, Eyal Bergman, told EETimes.
CEVA has always promised high levels of flexibility with its programmable designs, offering its software defined approach as an alternative to traditional hardwired modems. But is now promising scalability as well as a wide choice of technologies, the firm argues. And it has put a major degree of effort into reduce power consumption and die size for small devices. The XC4000 should support LTE-Advanced PHY chips at half the size of products based on its XC323.
CEVA's designs were in about 40% of handsets shipped in 2011, according to the Linley Group, and it also targets base stations as well as processors for broadcasting, smart grid and broadband gear. Last year, Intel extended the licence it had acquired with Infineon Wireless, raising speculation that the giant would extend its mobile offerings, while Samsung, Broadcom, NEC and Mindspeed are also customers, among others.
Meanwhile, another IP core supplier, Tensilica, has also unveiled a new design targeting basebands for software programmable LTE-Advanced devices. The BBE32UE DSP core is the latest in its ConnX family and can be coupled with the firm's baseband dataplane processors to enable a flexible LTE-Advanced modem which consumes less than 200mW of power (excluding turbo coding). The BBU32UE has 32 processing elements, although in a handset some activities (FFTs and FIR filters) will be offloaded to other dedicated DSPs.The new core has been optimized for category 6 and 7 LTE-A and can also support 2G, 3G, LTE and HSPA+ standards.
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