Tensilica's high-performance ConnX DSP family for LTE and 4G SoC designs

SANTA CLARA, USA: Tensilica Inc. has introduced a new family of high-performance DSPs (digital signal processors) IP (intellectual property) cores -- the ConnX DSP family -- that includes standard cores, click-box configurable options or a starting point for customized Xtensa LX DPUs (dataplane processor units) for SoC designs.

The newest member of the family, the ConnX Baseband Engine provides industry leading computational throughput (sixteen 18-bit MACs per cycle) due to its application-specific instruction set optimized for compute-intensive LTE and 4G wireless base stations. Tensilica plans other ConnX family members for the low-power requirements of the handset market.

"With its configurable instruction set, Tensilica has morphed its basic Xtensa RISC architecture to become a compelling DSP engine," stated Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts.

"The company's first giant leap into the DSP world was through the design of their HiFi 2 Audio Engine into cellular phones, Blu-ray Disc players, and other home entertainment products, where they've had considerable success. Now, with the ConnX DSP Baseband Engine, Tensilica is taking aim at the fastest growing part of the market - next generation wireless. They already have major customers - including Fujitsu, Panasonic and NEC -- doing their own designs in this market. I expect they will do quite well with this high-performance DSP engine."

"Our customers are increasingly customizing Xtensa DPUs for both small, power efficient DSP functions and large, complex DSP functions," stated Jack Guedj, Tensilica's president and CEO. "The majority of our over 350 million DPU cores shipped have performed complex DSP functions, such as audio, video, security, and image signal processing. Now, with this family of pre-designed communications DSP cores, our customers will be able to achieve faster time-to-market on their new next-generation of communications SOCs."

Tensilica realizes that there are two very different types of requirements for DSPs in wireless systems. The ConnX Baseband Engine fills the more traditional software-centric DSP requirements for base stations, and for multi-mode, multi-standard terminal devices. Tensilica's Xtensa technology can also be optimized to build more narrowly tailored, optimized functional blocks that fit into a hardware-centric design style typically found in wireless handset implementations, and Tensilica plans several products in this area.

The ConnX family of communications DSP engines includes other functions that are in high demand for next-generation compute-intensive tasks. The ConnX Baseband Engine joins the proven quad-MAC Vectra LX DSP option, which is now re-branded as the ConnX Vectra Engine. The ConnX Vectra Engine has been used in many customer designs and is an integral part of the re-branded ConnX 545CK standard DSP.

The ConnX 545CK was previously known as the Diamond 545CK, which received a BDTIsimMark2000 score of 3820. The BDTIsimMark is a summary measure of overall DSP processing speed based on BDTI's DSP Kernel Benchmarks, and the 545CK received the highest BDTIsimMark2000 score of all licensable cores evaluated by BDTI.

The ConnX family of DSP engines includes other functions that are in high demand for next-generation compute-intensive tasks. Tensilica expects that it can quickly leverage its customizable processor technology to develop key functions that will significantly expand its business in several market areas.