Analog Devices Adds to its SHARC Floating Point DSP Portfolio

Analog Devices has recently launched the latest additions to its SHARC range of 32-bit floating point DSPs, namely, the SHARC 2147x and the SHARC 2148x series.

The low-power SHARC 2147x and the high-performance SHARC 2148x series processors provide single-chip based floating point signal processing accuracy for a broad range of applications and facilitate high-end system features in portable devices. These processors are able to deliver an optimized price and performance capability along with a maximum integrated memory capacity of 5 Mb.

Using the SHARC 2147x and the SHARC 2148x processors, designers will able to benefit by the end-to-end code compatibility feature of the SHARC family, along with a robust collection of ADI development tools for realizing new development efficiency levels and design innovation through this new DSP platform that gives best performance in the industry.

Floating point processing, reserved hitherto for dedicated systems having sufficient board space for accommodating off-chip memory and multiple processors, is currently more affordable and accessible for designers who are considering offering high-end processing power for mass market applications. The SHARC 2148x series processors are able to offer up to 33% improved performance at 400 MHz and a maximum of 250% additional on-chip memory, namely, 5 Mb in comparison to competitors’ 32-bit based floating point DSPs. This makes the SHARC 2148x series processors as the preferred choice of processors for home theater and high-definition (HD) applications, and enhanced industrial applications that require single-chip based floating point accuracy at a low price point.  

Designers of battery-powered or/and portable systems are currently better equipped than before for leveraging floating point processing accuracy without jeopardizing component costs, board space, or system power budgets. The 12x12 mm-sized SHARC 2147x series processors when used for portable gadgets and applications, such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) requiring floating point processing accuracy with high environmental tolerance and low power consumption,  will only consume 363 mW power for a typical use-case, which is up to 20% less as compared to competitors’ processors. They can also offer better memory integration for every square millimeter and a maximum performance of 266 MHz with a maximum on-chip memory of 5 Mb.

Both SHARC 2147x and SHARC 2148x processors incorporate specialized hardware accelerators along with DMA memory mapping and autonomous computing compute units, facilitating the ability for executing the SHARC 2148x. This execution is for the application code by reducing the sizing of instruction opcode.

The SHARC 2148x processors, with integrated specialized on-chip decoders and audio centric peripherals for enabling high performance designs for audio products, help designers to develop feature-rich home theatre and HD audio systems in increasingly minute form factors.

The SHARC 2147x processors offer the computational accuracy for facilitating radar-based ADAS that includes multi-target tracking, optimal target resolution, blind spot detection, cross traffic alert, and system responsiveness in real time for applications that are critical for safety.