NAB SHOW, Las Vegas – April 17, 2012 – Advantech (TWSE: 2395.TW), a leading designer and manufacturer of multicore media processing platforms, and Ittiam Systems Private Limited, headquartered in Bangalore, India, a technology company singularly focused on embedded media-centric systems, announced the availability of a new high-density audio transcoding platform on Advantech’s DSPC-8681 card based on four TMS320C6678 multicore DSPs from Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI). This platform sets new levels of performance in channel density and transcoding throughput in a half-length PCIe form factor.

“The combination of Ittiam’s production-proven audio processing codecs optimized for TI’s C6678 multicore DSPs and Advantech’s PCIe cards results in a highly scalable solution for OEMs,” said David Lin, Director DSP Solutions, Advantech. “The availability of such a high-performance audio processing platform in an industry-standard form factor will help our customers accelerate integration and development times much faster than before.”

Advantech’s DSPC-8681 is capable of transcoding multiple channels of audio and video, and it provides the hardware foundation for a wide variety of media codecs.

“The DSPC-8681 represents a powerful platform that enables high-quality and very high-channel transcoding for infrastructure needs,” said Rohit Bhuva, Ittiam Vice President, Business Development, Americas. “Using Advantech’s platform allows us to deliver Ittiam’s Broadcast Solutions to customers as a complete package with a shorter time to market.”

Ittiam’s software systems for broadcast applications are available for licensing as software development kits (SDKs) with defined application programming interfaces (APIs) on TI’s C667x multicore DSPs. The SDKs include a multimedia framework, middleware and codecs. The codecs include both highly optimized video and audio codecs for various formats and other video and audio processing algorithms. Running on Advantech’s DSPC-8681, Ittiam’s audio SDK can transcode 400+ channels of MPEG-1 Layer II to AAC.

Advantech’s DSPC-8681 Media Engine integrates four of TI’s C6678 multicore DSPs, the PLX® ExpressLane™ PEX8624 PCIe Gen 2 switch, and the Xilinx XC3S200AN Spartan-3 FPGA to achieve the highest possible performance levels in a half-length PCIe form factor. High-speed inter-DSP communications provide low latency interconnects for scalable real-time multi-processing and connect to the host through a high-bandwidth PCIe x8 gen 2 interface. Based on the same design as the quad DSP card, Advantech’s DSPC-8682 extends the form factor to full length PCIe to accommodate eight of TI’s C6678 multicore DSPs, providing a significant leap forward in multicore density and processing performance.

Ittiam’s software framework will run on both the DSPC-8681 and DSPC-8682, allowing OEMs to build scalable solutions for a wide range of channel densities. By deploying solutions based on advanced media processing hardware today, OEMs can leverage the benefits of an all-software approach to extend their product lifecycles through new software enhancements in the future.

Advantech will be exhibiting at the NAB SHOW, Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada USA on April 16 – 19, 2012 on booth #SU11006.

Website: www.advantech.com/products/DSP-Processing-Platf[...]

NABSHOW, Las Vegas, April 16, 2012 – Advantech (TWSE: 2395.TW), a leading designer and manufacturer of multicore video processing platforms, announced a new family of breakthrough video processing products based on Texas Instruments’ (TI’s) TMS320C6678 multicore DSP. Advantech’s products will offer the true flexibility that an all software approach brings to video processing, but at lower power levels and in a smaller form factor than before.

“Advantech is accelerating the evolution of video platforms for OEMs through innovative DSP solutions which enable faster capture, encoding and processing at higher resolutions and data rates than ever before.” said David Lin, Director DSP Solutions, Advantech. “We’ll be demonstrating how our latest products, based on TI’s DM8168 DaVinci digital media processors and C6678 multicore DSPs, are setting new standards in video processing innovation and performance,” he added.

Advantech’s DSPC-8681 Video Engine, a quad C6678 half-length PCIe, is capable of transcoding multiple channels of video. This breaks new ground with sufficient computing power to perform video encoding/decoding at resolutions up to 4k x 2k using the JPEG2000 codec. This is encoding or decoding in real-time and spanning four TI C6678 devices simultaneously.

“This new platform from Advantech offers our high performance video processors in robust industry-standard form factors, facilitating more rapid product development byour customers,” said Sean Gardner, video iinfrastructure business manager, Texas Instruments. “By running the JPEG 2000 codec on Advantech’s DSPC-8681 we have been able to reduce the cost by 50%. This has the potential to enable new video applications at 4k x 2k resolution that previously would not have been feasible.”

Advantech also announced today the DSPC-8682 video processing engine, a full length PCIe card with eight TI C6678 DSPs. Based on the same design as the quad DSP card, the DSPC-8682 provides a significant leap forward in multicore density and processing performance, The platform supports 2K/4K resolution with JPEG2000 or other standard codecs and will also provide the opportunity for future video processing needs such as handling of 8k video or adoption of future codec standards such as HEVC (H.265).

High-speed inter-DSP communications on both cards provides low latency interconnects for scalable real-time multi-processing and connections to the host through a high-bandwidth PCIe x8 gen 2 interface. The DSPC-8681 and DSPC-8682 are able to perform 1,024 and 2,048 GMAC (Giga Multiply-Accumulation operations per second) respectively using the embedded C66x DSP cores inside the C6678 device. This unrivalled raw computing power makes both products aperfect fit for advanced and complex video processing including deep-color pixel manipulation, HEVC/H.265 and advanced video processing algorithms.

Advantech collaborated with TI on a common set of drivers for both platforms which support TI’s foundational software framework. TI’s Multicore Software Development Kit (MCSDK) will run on the DSPC-8681, DSPC-8682 and future Advantech platforms allowing OEMs to deploy scalable product lines with quad or octal DSP boards. These platforms enable compact, low slot-count systems such as 1RU rack-mountable transcoding platforms or scale up to meet higher density needs requiring20-slot integrated systems with multiple board payloads.

Advantech also introduced today its new 8-channel video acquisitionboard, the DSPC-8662, based on four TI TMS320DM8168 media processors. The full length PCIe board supports SDI-SD/HD/3G and ASI inputs with an optional 4-channel HDMI video output for the delivery of multiple 1080p60 Full High-Definition (FHD) video streams with 4:2:0 pixel samples.

The flexibility of the DSPC-8662 makes it ideal for a wide range of video functions including acquisition, encoding, decoding, transcoding, video walls, multi-viewers and surveillance. Gigabit Ethernet provides network access while PCIe connectivity speeds integration into existing video carrier platforms. Available now withLinux and Windows based sample software code, the DSPC-8662 is designed to accelerate the development, integration and deployment of highly-efficient, high-density video solutions.

Advantech will be exhibiting these above products at the NABSHOW, Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada USA on April 16 – 19, 2012 in booth #SU11006.

Website: www.advantech.com/products/DSP-Processing-Platf[...]

Toronto, Canada – GAO Embedded (www.GAOEmbedded.com) is offering its XDS510 USB 2.0 enhanced TI DSP emulator with drivers for both CCS3.3 and CCS2.x. It emulates TI’s TMS320C2000/3000/5000/6000 DSPs, as well as, C3X/4X/5X/8X, OMAP OMAP1510/1610/1710/2420/310/5910. The emulator features high emulating speed and real time data exchange (RTDX) with data transfer rates of up to 480 MB/s.

This easy-to-install TI DSP emulator, model A0M00003, runs under Windows 98/NT/2000/XP operating systems and is equipped with a standard high-speed USB 2.0 interface and JTAG emulation interface that saves computer resources. It has a real-time event sequence server that is severable without service interference. The emulator is self-regulated to the DSP voltage of the target board. It is capable of preventing the system from crashing and becoming non-rebootable when the power of target board goes off. The USB TI DSP emulator conducts hardware detection in the event of power failure or cable disconnection. It offers flash programming for F28x/F240x/F24x/F20x. In addition, the XDS510 USB 2.0 enhanced TI DSP emulator features a compact size, plug-and-play operation, a high operating speed and multi-DSP emulation.

This hot-pluggable XDS510 USB 2.0 enhanced TI DSP emulator belongs to GAO’s family of TI DSP Emulators &Debuggers. This line of products also includes XDS510 USB Plus JTAG Emulator which uses XDS560 JTAG technology to greatly improve its stability and anti-interference capabilities, JTAG Scan Path TI DSP Emulator Pod which supports bi-directional, ECP, and EPP transfers, USB-PLUS Emulator which supports multi-CPU debugging and is able to automatically adjust the emulation speed. This line of emulators and debuggers serves the needs of electronic professionals internationally.

For sales inquiries please contact:

1-877 585-9555 ext. 601 – Toll Free (USA & Canada)

1-416 292-0038 ext. 601 – All Other Areas

sales@gaoembedded.com

About GAO Embedded

GAO Embedded (www.GAOEmbedded.com) is a global supplier of embedded development tools and RFID embedded modules. GAO Embedded aims to help customer reduce design and development time and cut costs by providing the most effective solutions.

6WINDGate software accelerates time‐to‐market for TI customers designing networking products in mobile and cloud infrastructure markets

DALLAS – (March 13, 2012) – Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN) and 6WIND, the gold standard for software-defined networks, today announced support within the 6WINDGate™ software solution for TI’s new scalable 28-nm multicore processors based on its recently announced KeyStone II multicore architecture. By providing a comprehensive, pre‐integrated suite of packet processing software, 6WINDGate eliminates the need for TI’s customers to invest their engineering resources into combining discrete protocols from multiple sources and/or designing custom optimizations. This enables OEMs to more easily design high performance, software upgradeable, power- and cost-efficient networking platforms for mobile and cloud infrastructure applications.

The 6WINDGate software provides a proven solution to the challenges of performance, scalability, software compatibility and time-to-market faced by developers of high-end networking equipment. 6WINDGate includes a full set of control plane modules, a high performance networking stack and a wide range of data plane protocols that have been specifically optimized to deliver maximum performance on TI’s KeyStone II-based multicore processors. Maintaining full compatibility with standard Operating System APIs, the 6WINDGate fast path-based architecture enables OEMs to quickly migrate existing application software to TI’s KeyStone II architecture, allowing the use of TI’s on-chip network coprocessors, as well as reducing time to market and schedule risk.

“We are delighted to announce the addition of TI’s KeyStone II support to the 6WINDGate packet processing software,” said Eric Carmès, CEO of 6WIND. “Because it addresses critical issues in network bandwidth, scalability and Quality-of-Service, 6WINDGate has been adopted by multiple tier-one TEMs and is now deployed in two-thirds of the LTE networks worldwide. Our recently announced 6WINDGate Cloud Edition solution extends these benefits to cloud infrastructure. We have worked closely with TI to implement optimized support for its KeyStone II multicore architecture within 6WINDGate and look forward to delivering high performance software solutions to TI’s OEM customers.”

“We’re constantly looking for ways to push the envelope with our KeyStone II multicore processors,” said Ramesh Kumar, business manager, multicore processors, TI. “No multicore architecture matches the performance, flexibility and power efficiency of KeyStone II and our collaboration with 6WIND gives our customers the software support they need to quickly and easily develop high performance applications.”

TI’s scalable KeyStone II architecture includes support for both TMS320C66x digital signal processors (DSP) generation cores and multiple cache coherent quad ARM® Cortex™-A15 clusters, for a mixture of up to 32 DSP and RISC cores. The multicore architecture includes capacity expansion for SoC structural elements such as TeraNet, Multicore Navigator and Multicore Shared Memory Controller (MSMC). This expansion allows developers to fully utilize the capability of all processing elements, including ARM RISC cores, DSP cores and enhanced AccelerationPacs. RISC processing within KeyStone II has been significantly upgraded with the addition of quad ARM Cortex -A15 clusters, providing ultra-high performance at half the power consumption of traditional RISC cores.

Availability

6WINDGate support for TI’s KeyStone II multicore processors will be available in the second half of 2012. For more information please visit www.6wind.com.

About TI’s KeyStone multicore architecture

Texas Instruments’ KeyStone multicore architecture is the platform for true multicore innovation, offering developers a robust portfolio of high performance, low-power multicore devices. Unleashing breakthrough performance, the KeyStone architecture is the foundation upon which TI’s new TMS320C66x DSP generation was developed. KeyStone differs from any other multicore architecture as it has the capacity to provide full processing capability to every core in a multicore device. KeyStone-based devices are optimized for high performance markets including wireless base stations, mission critical, test and automation, medical imaging and high performance computing. Learn more at www.ti.com/multicore.

About 6WIND

6WIND, the gold standard for software-defined networks, transforms mobile and cloud infrastructure by providing scalable, high-performance, low-latency networking software optimized for cost-effective hardware based on multicore processors, while enabling Network-as-a-Service capabilities that monetize network services such as bandwidth, QoS and security. The company’s 6WINDGate™ software delivers sustainable competitive advantages to network operators, service providers, system integrators and network equipment providers. 6WIND is a privately owned company based near Paris, France with offices in Mountain View, California, Seoul, South Korea and Beijing, China. For more information, visit www.6wind.com.

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments semiconductor innovations help 90,000 customers unlock the possibilities of the world as it could be – smarter, safer, greener, healthier and more fun. Our commitment to building a better future is ingrained in everything we do – from the responsible manufacturing of our semiconductors, to caring for our employees, to giving back inside our communities. This is just the beginning of our story. Learn more at www.ti.com.

Freescale and Mercury Computer Systems will provide technical details of the processor and how Mercury Computer Systems utilizes the raw processing power and exceptional performance per watt of the T4240 processor. Performance, bandwidths and AltiVec performance with Mercury’s scientific application libraries will also be discussed.

Freescale Semiconductor and Mercury Computer Systems will be available for a Q&A session immediately following the E-cast.

• Who: Jerry Gipper, VITA Technologies, Editorial Director, OpenSystems Media (E- cast Moderator); Glenn Beck, Segment Marketing Manager, Freescale Semiconductor; and Dinesh Jain, Senior Product Manager, Mercury Computer Systems. 

• What: Industry experts from Freescale Semiconductor and Mercury Computer Systems present a live OpenSystems Media E-cast, “AltiVec Unleashed: Bringing Unprecedented Performance Levels to Signal Processing” 

• When: Thursday, March 15, 2012 at (2:00 p.m. EDT/11:00 a.m. PT) 

• Where: To attend the E-cast, participants can register at ecast.opensystemsmedia.com/ 

About OpenSystems Media

OpenSystems Media has been a leading publisher of electronics magazines, e-mail newsletters, websites, and product resource guides for more than 20 years. OpenSystems Media is also the leader in driving leads and awareness through social media and is the largest producer of lead-generation tools such as webcasts, whitepapers, product directories, Tech E-Briefs, TechChannels, and Techcasts. OpenSystems Media offers E-casts and Techcasts for engineers and provides interactive tools where engineers can communicate directly with presenters and top industry editors. Current publications include: Embedded Computing Design; Military Embedded Systems; CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA, & MicroTCA Systems; DSP-FPGA.com; PC/104 and Small Form Factors; and VITA Technologies. For more information, visit www.opensystemsmedia.com.

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Toronto, Canada – GAO Embedded (www.GAOEmbedded.com) is offering its TI DSP evaluation board with a 32-bit fixed-point Flash DSP operating at 150 MHz. This module forms a complete digital servo motion control system by interfacing with one or two L/HVD (Low/High Voltage Driver) boards to drive one or two motors. It is an ideal tool for applications such as scientific research and product development.

This TI DSP evaluation board, model A0M10002, uses a custom designed power supply with reference voltage to provide superior accuracy of A/D sampling. It provides on-board VL-Bus data/address/control lead-out wires and special function pins with lead-out wires. It offers standard RS232, CAN communication interfaces for data exchange. An onboard IEEE1149 JTAG interface is also provided for real-time emulation. The TI DSP evaluation board features flash program memory, onboard and extendable SRAM and extendable EEPROM. Source code for testing CCS, PWM, ADC, SPI, SCI, CAN communication, FFT, DC brush/brushless motors and AC motor SPWM and SVPWM is also available.

This TI DSP evaluation board belongs to GAO’s family of TI DSP Evaluation Board. The line includes two similar products: 2812EVM-I TI DSP Evaluation Board and 2812EVM-II Evaluation Board which is an upgrade of its 2812EVM-I. They are specially optimized for motor driving and control systems based on MS320F2812 series DSPs. The line also includes DEC6713 Evaluation Board which is based on TMS320C6713B DSP: 32 Bit floating point DSP operating at 200 MHz (Max. upto 300 MHz), 1600 MIPS (Max. upto 2400 MIPS) and IB2812 Interface Board which is a sub-board for the extended keyboard and display panel.

MOSCOW, Russia – February 22, 2012 – SPIRIT DSP, the world’s top voice and video over IP engines provider, has announced today its plans to demonstrate live multi-point, cross platform mobile HD VVoIP (Voice&Video Over IP) calling at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Feb. 27-March 1.

In booth #2H11 (Hall 2), SPIRIT will demonstrate the following award-winning software solutions:

· TeamSpirit® Voice&Video Engine, a set of sophisticated plug-n-play SDKs (Software Development Kits) that allow carriers/operators, application developers and device manufacturers to quickly launch HD-quality, mobile VVoIP calling applications and services across all popular tablets and smartphones, including Apple’s iOS clients and dozens of Android handsets. TeamSpirit Voice&Video Engine is optimized for mobile platforms and designed for the rapid development of high-quality, multi-platform VVoIP applications. With TeamSpirit, developers can focus on their own applications and quickly bring new products to market that include the best IP calling experience possible. TeamSpirit includes resource-efficient, error-resilient voice and video codecs, echo and noise processing and advanced tools for stream protection and adaptation to changes in network, execution and physical environments. SPIRIT Conferencing Server software, using Scalable voice and video codecs, enables the development of multi-point voice and videoconferencing applications with unprecedented channel density (1000 video channels per $4K server) and accurate adaptation to specific capabilities of every user’s network, screen size and terminal power.

· VideoMost.com, a massively multi-point, web-based videoconferencing solution, available to service providers and ISPs as a white-label branding offering, allowing them to effectively compete against OTT (Over-the-Top) providers like Skype and Google and provide high-margin services for businesses. Based on SPIRIT’s engines, VideoMost.com works on connections from 512 Kbps, providing up to 30 fps HD 720p and supports an unprecedented 1000 simultaneous video channels per server. It uses standard internet access, microphone and speakers, and webcams; requires no registration or specially equipped meeting rooms; and features a rich set of collaboration tools, conference management and more. Built for corporate usage, VideoMost.com is served-based managed and secure, unlike others, and easily integrates with corporate portals, emails and calendars.

“Today, the mobile marketplace is the fastest growing technology-driven industry in the world, fueled primarily by the growing demand from ‘always-on’ consumers and businesses to conduct communicates, transactions, research, entertainment etc., anytime, anywhere,” said SPIRIT’s VP, Sales Alexander Kravchenko. “The proliferation of smartphones and tablets has become mainstream and mobile is now the device of choice, with Mobile World Congress being the largest and most exciting venue that offers a glimpse into the future of this industry. With 250+ operator, OTT service and solution provider customers, SPIRIT plays a critical role to ensure the highest quality communications to millions of mobile users worldwide, and we’re excited to be at Mobile World Congress, once again, to demonstrate the future of mobile IP communications with our TeamSpirit cross-platform engines and VideoMost web-videoconferencing software.”

About SPIRIT

SPIRIT DSP is the world’s top voice and video over IP engines provider. SPIRIT’s innovative carrier-grade voice and video software platform allows carriers, OEMs and software developers to deliver superior quality and integrated voice and video over IP services for telcos, cable and mobile service providers, enterprises, internet portals and social networks. More than 200+ million channels in 80+ countries are based on SPIRIT’s platforms. SPIRIT software platforms power popular products from Apple, Adobe, ARM, AT&T, Blizzard, BT, China Mobile, Cisco, Ericsson, HP, HTC, Huawei, KT, Kyocera, LG U+, Microsoft, NEC, Oracle, Polycom, Radvision, Samsung, Skype, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Veraz, Viber, ZTE, among 250+ others. SPIRIT’s direct OEM customers jointly exceed 60 percent of the global smartphone market share. VideoMost.com is the SPIRIT spin-off for multi-point video-web-conferencing service. For more information, visit www.spiritdsp.com.

Tensilica, Inc. today announced that the NatureDSP Math Library from IntegrIT DSP Design House, a leading supplier of DSP (digital signal processing) software solutions, is now available for Tensilica’s ConnX BBE16 baseband DSP for system-on-chip (SOC) design.

The IntegrIT NatureDSP Math library simplifies the software development process for design teams that want to port their own signal processing application software to the ConnX BBE16 DSP. The IntegrIT Nature DSP Signal+ is a collection of signal processing routines needed for implementation of typical digital signal processing functions including highly optimised routines for filtering, FFT, matrix, trigonometric and other math operations.

“Tensilica’s ConnX BBE16 DSP has been selected by several major communications suppliers,” stated Dmitry Paroshin, managing partner, IntergIT. “Now, with this library, developers will get an additional choice of high-performance math functions that will speed their development efforts. Customers can reach the full computational power of the BBE16 DSP with their application software thanks to the useful and optimised algorithmic kernels of the library.”

“IntegrIT has a proven track record in providing high-quality DSP libraries,” stated Eric Dewannain, Tensilica’s vice president and general manager, baseband business unit. “This library will speed our mutual customers’ software development times significantly.”

Tampere, Finland; February 6th 2012 – VLSI Solution announces VS1005 SoC, a highly integrated all-in-one chip for audio processing applications. The VS1005 System-on-a-Chip contains an extensive set of peripheral interfaces. Included are controllers for Hi-speed USB host/slave, SD card, parallel NAND flash, SPI, Ethernet, S/PDIF, I2S master/slave and UART. VS1005 also contains 24-bit ADC’s and DAC’s, headphone and microphone amplifiers, linear regulators, a real-time clock, and an FM tuner with RDS. Controlled by a DSP, all these features allow for unprecedented flexibility in creating Hi-Fi stereo audio products.

The features of VS1005 are particularly suited for portable audio devices, docking stations, and portable recorder applications. To build a state-of-the-art personal music player or recorder just three additional circuits in addition to the VS1005 SoC are needed (a NAND flash, an axis accelerometer, and a power management device).

The audio signal paths of VS1005 SoC are very flexible. Digital audio inputs and outputs can be independent of analog inputs and outputs. Digital interfaces like S/PDIF allow easy and high-quality digital connectivity to home stereo systems. A digital sample rate converter allows for inputs and outputs with different sample rates.

The Hi-speed USB host function is useful in systems that require audio playback capability from external media such as USB memory sticks or drives, opening up many new applications in AV receivers and radio players. USB slave mode is also supported.

The Ethernet interface provides Internet streaming capability over wired lines. I2S extends digital connectivity with other ICs. The RTC and battery backed registers provide alarm functions as well as very low power – low speed modes for the DSP.

The VS1005 SoC takes a new approach in application development when compared to VLSI’s earlier products. The multitasking operating system VSOS and the object code library MegaLib offer services that can be utilized with VLSI Solution’s Integrated Development Environment VSIDE. This combination makes writing applications to VS1005′s 256 KiB RAM memory a straightforward and intuitive process. To further extend VS1005′s usability, code can be loaded dynamically from any non-volatile memory, including VS1005′s optional internal 1024 KiB flash memory. The internal flash memory can be protected, making it possible for developers and third parties to protect their code.

The MegaLib library includes all VLSI Solution’s existing codecs: MP3 and Ogg Vorbis encoders, MP2, MP3, WMA, OGG, LC-AAC, HC-AAC, FLAC, IMA and WAV PCM decoders, and other functions: FM including RDS, file I/O, device drivers, application loading, multitasking, graphical interface functions, audio processing, etc.

VS1005 SoC is offered in LFGA-88 10x10x0.9 RoHS compatible package.

More information is available at www.vlsi.fi/en/products/vs1005. The VS1005 Datasheet will be available in late February 2012. Two other documents, The VS1005 Hardware Guide and The VS1005 Programmer’s Guide, will be available in April 2012.

VS1005 engineering samples are expected to be available in June 2012, followed by mass production devices in October 2012.

About VLSI Solution (www.vlsi.fi)

VLSI Solution is an innovative new technology creator that designs and manufactures integrated circuits. Within its 20-year existence VLSI has built an extensive in-house IP library and has the capability to pull through complicated mixed-signal IC projects, ranging from digital audio to RF applications.

NORWOOD, Mass. — Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), the leading provider of data conversion technology*, today introduced two data converter FMC boards (FPGA mezzanine cards) that connect to Xilinx Inc.’s new 28nm 7 series FPGA (field programmable gate array) evaluation kits. ADI’s high-speed AD9739A D/A converter and AD9467 A/D converter FMC boards support multiple generations of Xilinx kits — including the company’s new Kintex-7 FPGA evaluation kits Xilinx announced today. The new Analog Devices FMC boards include all of the HDL (hardware description language) code and device drivers needed for designers to engage in rapid prototyping and reduce development time and risk. Both products are being demonstrated at the DesignCon 2012 trade show in Santa Clara, Calif., in the Xilinx booth (#732).

“The availability of low cost commercial off the shelf hardware, such as the AD9739A FMC board, and the new Kintex-7 development boards, allows our customers to quickly prototype and evaluate many of the IP Cores which we offer,” said Jean-Claude Basset, technical director/manager, MVD Cores**, a Certified Member of the Xilinx Alliance Program. “We have verified our digital RF up converter IP cores with the AD9739A FMC board and Xilinx’s Virtex-6, Kintex-7 and Spartan-6 boards and recommend that our customers use this hardware to evaluate our IP Cores.”

For information about ADI’s FMC boards: www.analog.com/Xilinx

To order ADI’s FMC boards***:

AD9739A FMC: www.digilentinc.com/AD9739A-FMC

AD9467 FMC: www.digilentinc.com/AD9467-FMC

Get support at ADI’s EngineerZone™ online technical support community: ez.analog.com/community/fpga

To learn more about ADI’s data conversion technology: www.analog.com/en/data-converters/products/inde[...]

“ADI’s new FMC boards, integration software and industry-leading data conversion expertise help engineers designing with Xilinx’s Kintex-7 series FPGAs to move more quickly through system prototyping and get their products to market faster,” said Dave Babicz, director of Global Alliances, Analog Devices. “At the same time, our new boards are backward compatible with other Xilinx FPGAs, which means that engineers will be able to design products that meet a range of performance criteria using a simplified design environment.”

“Xilinx’s Targeted Design Platforms accelerate system development and integration by providing the industry’s most comprehensive development kits, which include boards, tools, IP cores, reference designs and FMC support,” said Raj Seelam, senior marketing manager, Targeted Design Platforms, Xilinx. “Our adoption and support for open standards such as FMC and the AMBA®4 AXI IP core interface strengthens the ability of Xilinx Alliance Program members like Analog Devices to deliver key technologies that make it easier for FPGA users to complete their projects.”

More About ADI’s AD9739A D/A Converter FMC Board

ADI’s AD9739A FMC board is based on the AD9739A, a 14-bit D/A converter that enables cable television and broadband operators to synthesize the entire cable spectrum up to 1 GHz into a single RF (radio frequency) port, while consuming a maximum of 1.1 W of power. The AD9739A 14-bit, 2.5-GSPS D/A converter’s wide bandwidth and dynamic range enable cable operators to increase the QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) channel densities by 20 times over the densities found in today’s cable modems. Competing D/A converter solutions require an additional 28 LVDS (low-voltage differential signaling) pairs for the data interface.

More About ADI’s AD9467 A/D Converter FMC Board

ADI’s AD9467 FMC board is based on the AD9467, which is a 16-bit, 250-MSPS A/D converter that operates on 35 percent less power at a 25 percent higher sampling rate than any other 16-bit data converter. The AD9467 provides a new level of signal processing performance for test and measurement instrumentation, defense electronics and communications applications where high resolution over a wide bandwidth is needed.

The AD9467 delivers resolution and a fast sample rate while simultaneously achieving a high SFDR (spurious-free dynamic range) of up to 100 dBFS and SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) performance of 76.4 dBFS. The device’s SFDR of 90 dBFS up to 300 MHz analog input and 60-femtosecond rms (root mean square) jitter help lower the signal chain bill of materials component count by allowing engineers to increase system performance at higher intermediate frequencies, thereby reducing the number of signal down-conversion stages.

Availability and Pricing

Product Availability Price

AD9739A FMC board with 14-bit D/A converter

Now

$349

AD9467 FMC board with 16-bit A/D converter

March 2012

Contact Digilent Inc.

About Analog Devices

Innovation, performance, and excellence are the cultural pillars on which Analog Devices has built one of the longest standing, highest growth companies within the technology sector. Acknowledged industry-wide as the world leader in data-conversion and signal-conditioning technologies, Analog Devices serves over 60,000 customers, representing virtually all types of electronic equipment. Analog Devices is headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts, with design and manufacturing facilities throughout the world. Analog Devices’ common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “ADI” and is included in the S&P 500 Index. www.analog.com

Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), announced today the Xilinx Kintex™-7 FPGA DSP Development Kit with High-Speed Analog, supporting Xilinx’s 7 series Targeted Design Platforms. As the demand for faster processing of wideband analog signals continues to rise, this digital signal processing (DSP) development kit offers engineers a proven platform to test, design and deliver a wide range of DSP enabled end products. The cost of this kit is $3,995. Order entry is open now and shipments will begin in mid-March. For more details visit the Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA DSP Development Kit information page.

Click to Tweet: Just Announced: avnet.me/00568 The @XilinxInc Kintex-7 FPGA DSP Development Kit with High-Speed Analog from Avnet

Designed in collaboration with Xilinx, Inc., the Xilinx Kintex™-7 FPGA DSP Development Kit is comprised of two critical elements. The first is the Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA KC705 base board. The KC705 features high-performance, serial connectivity and advanced memory interfacing, with the flexibility of the 28nm Kintex-7 field programmable gate array (FPGA) that delivers maximum power efficiency and up to 1200 GMACs of DSP processing bandwidth. The second component of the Xilinx Kintex™-7 FPGA DSP Development Kit is the 4DSP FMC 150, an integrated high-speed FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) that interfaces with signals from the outside world. Featuring dual-channel 800 MSPS 16-bit digital-to-analog converters (DACs) and dual-channel 250 MSPS 14-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) from Texas Instruments (TI), the high-speed analog module delivers exceptional throughput when combined with the massively parallel processing bandwidth of the DSP48E1 arithmetic processing engines in the Kintex™-7 FPGA.

Together, these components create a development kit that combines the performance of Xilinx’s 7 series FPGA with the high-speed data conversion of the FMC 150, enabling designers to focus on their application at the beginning of the design process. DSP designers will benefit from intuitive MathWorks tools for system modeling, simulation and auto-code generation. Target applications include wireless communications infrastructure, aerospace and defense, test and measurement, and medical imaging.

Included in the Kintex™-7 FPGA DSP Development Kit:

• Xilinx Kintex™-7 KC705 base board with Kintex™-7 FPGA 

• 4DSP FMC 150 High-Speed ADC/DAC FMC 

• 12V power supply 

• Xilinx ISE® Design Suite: System Edition 

• Targeted Reference Designs include RTL and MathWorks model-based design tool flows 

“This latest DSP development kit from Avnet and Xilinx enables experienced and new developers to FPGAs to quickly focus on the heart of their design that leverages signal processing capabilities of Kintex-7 FPGAs,” said Tom Hill, senior manager DSP Platforms at Xilinx. “Because Kintex-7 devices deliver 2x price-performance improvement with 50 percent less power consumption than previous generation devices, developers can achieve massive levels of DSP performance with significantly lower power and cost.”

“In the time-to-market race, every second counts,” said Jim Beneke, vice president, global technical marketing, Avnet Electronics Marketing. “Avnet’s technical team understands these pressures and has worked with Xilinx to create several design tutorials and application examples for the kit that shrink development time and allow our customers to focus entirely on innovation and design – moving technology from design to market faster.”

View the Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA DSP Development Kit Firsthand at DesignCon 2012

The Xilinx Kintex™-7 FPGA DSP Development Kit with High-Speed Analog is on display at the 2012 DesignCon event in San Jose, California, in the Xilinx, Inc. booth #732.

Toronto, Canada – GAO Research Inc. (www.GAOResearch.com) is offering its V.90 Modem Software. It implements the V.90 ITU-T recommendation for modems that can connect at data rates of up to 56 kbps. The standard specifies a pair of high-speed modems, one digital and the other analog, which are designed for Internet use.

This V.90 modem software features PCM modulation in the downstream direction at the rate of 8000 symbols/s. It provides synchronous data signalling rates in the downstream direction from 28000 to 56000 bps in increments of 8/6 kbps. It uses V.34 modulation in the upstream direction to avoid quantization noise between the ISP and CO.

Most ISPs are digitally connected both to the Internet and to the telephone company’s central office (CO). When this is the case, there is a clear digital connection downstream from the ISP’s modem to the CO’s line card that serves the user and contains a digital to analog converter.

The V.90 Server Modem is a digital modem with a maximum transmission bit rate of 56 kbps and reception bit rate of 33.6 kbps. The V.90 Client Modem is an analog modem with a maximum bit rate of 56 kbps receive, 33.6 kbps transmit. The software is available for various processors and DSPs.

This V.90 modem software belongs to GAO’s family of Soft Modems. Other products in this line are V.34 Modem Software which has a maximum bit rate of 33.6 kbps, and V.32 bis/V.32 Modem Software which is designed to process data in 10 ms intervals. The family also includes V.44 Data Compression Software, V.42bis Data Compression Software and V.42 Error Correction Protocol. The line of products provides the most comprehensive and unique suite of modem, fax, telephony, speech software, VoIP, FoIP, fax relay and fax/modem/voice relay software for embedded applications for DSP and microprocessors.

The embedded-community meets again in Nuremberg – at embedded world 2012 from 28 February–1 March. About 800 international exhibitors from around 34 countries show hardware, software, tools and services. We are there, too!

Use the opportunity of visiting the exhibition for contacts and discussions with our team of experts on stand 414b in hall 5.

Advance registration on the Internet simplifies your preparations. If you are interested in attending the Conferences, you will also find the conference programmes and registration form on the Internet at www.embedded-world.de. The latest list of exhibitors and hall plans are also available there for detailed information.

We look forward to your visit to embedded world 2012 in Nuremberg.

About OpenSystems Media

OpenSystems Media has been a leading publisher of electronics magazines, e-mail newsletters, websites, and product resource guides for more than 20 years. OpenSystems Media offers E-casts and Techcasts for engineers and provides interactive tools where engineers can communicate directly with presenters and top industry editors. Current publications include: CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA, & MicroTCA Systems; DSP-FPGA.com; Embedded Computing Design; Industrial Embedded Systems; Military Embedded Systems; PC/104 and Small Form Factors; and VME and Critical Systems. For more information, visit www.opensystemsmedia.com.

MOSCOW, Russia – Dec. 21, 2011 – SPIRIT DSP, the world’s top voice and video over IP engines provider, today announced a significant upgrade to its TeamSpirit® cross-platform voice and video engines, a set of sophisticated SDKs (Software Development Kit) for service providers, software application developers and OEMs/ODMs to quickly launch

HD (High Definition) voice and video calling applications and services across all popular desktop and mobile devices.

A global study of the broadband market by Point Topic has found that value-added services, such as Voice Over IP (VoIP), added almost 37 percent to the basic broadband subscription during 2010, and generated $60 billion in revenue for vendors with total value-added service revenues increasing from $48.8 billion at the end of the 2009 to $57.5 billion at the end of 2010. Point Topic estimated that VoIP is the most valuable service, with VoIP revenues running at a rate of just over $17 billion at the end of 2010, with 120 million VoIP subscribers. According to a recent report by International Data Corporation (IDC), the global videoconferencing market saw an increase of 24.3 percent year-over-year in Q3 2011. Improvements in technology and better overall networks can be attributed to this growth.

“There’s a profound and growing demand for inexpensive, high quality and feature-rich IP-based communications from businesses and consumers alike,” said SPIRIT DSP’s Product Marketing Director Alexander Samarin. “Simply put, more people are doing more things via their broadband connections, but there’s no longer room for a ‘good enough’ experience. Apple, Google and Skype did their job perfectly in promoting quality video calling to billions of people, however, their services still miss the mark on cross terminal compatibility and a unified high quality user experience, which is extremely critical for communications. Nor do they provide efficient team collaboration tools for businesses. Service providers and solution developers must get to market quickly in order to deliver on the promise of high-value, high-performance, cross-platform communication solutions in order to gain and retain customers. With our TeamSpirit platform, new communication startups gains millions of users in months, while the traditional carriers get the ability to retain and expand their services’ user base with their own LTE/IP-based OTT/VAS services featuring HD voice and video calls for consumers and SaaS video conferencing/collaboration for their broadband business users.”

The new versions of SPIRIT’s TeamSpirit Voice&Video Engine Mobile, TeamSpirit Conferencing Server Engine and TeamSpirit Voice&Video Engine PC (version 3.2.2) include the following upgrades that translate to a more rapid time-to-market for SPIRIT customers that develop cross-platform voice and video calling applications and services, as well as a better Quality of Experience (QoE) to their end users:

- Support for the new versions of Apple’s operating systems iOS (5) and Mac OS X (10.7) and dozens of new Android handsets. 

- Support for Google’s open source video codec VP8, offering compatibility with Google’s and other open source products and eliminating expensive royalties associated with the standard MPEG H.264 video codec. 

- Improved loss protection for video stream, delivering even better quality across all networks. 

- Increased performance (Frames Per Second) of H.264 video, improved rendering with Android’s OpenGL ES video and decreased media delay for voice and video calls for a better user experience. 

- Increased productivity of mobile users, allowing videoconferencing on multiple mobile platforms with several participants. 

- New APIs for camera switching, arbitrary viewports, image mirroring and device orientation, offering the ability to develop more sophisticated video calling applications with a better UI. 

- Virtual camera interface for custom video streaming from mobile devices, offering new usage scenarios for end users. 

- An expanded set of SDK examples for easy integration and faster time to market. 

- Improved AEC (Acoustic Echo Cancellation) technology that delivers better performance and sound quality on mobile devices. 

Samarin continued, “Quality across all platforms and time-to-market has been the driving force behind the massive uptake of our TeamSpirit engines, and we’re proud to announce this latest version, which offers an even more sophisticated and rich plug-n-play API that is unparalleled in its ability to help our customers quickly deliver on the promise of anytime, anywhere premium-quality IP calling services.”

The TeamSpirit Engines are SDKs for real-time IP calling/conferencing communications, allowing business application developers and service providers to offer superior quality communications products to millions of global users. The TeamSpirit engine software uniquely combines scalable echo- and noise-free audio with scalable video, a necessary marriage to ensure the highest quality conferencing experience. TeamSpirit enables many hours of battery life in wideband talk mode. The voice engine includes highly optimized standard voice codecs and a patent-free wideband, error-resilient scalable SPIRIT IP-MR voice codec (IETF RFC 6262). The video engine includes SPIRIT’s H.264 scalable video codec that is able to adapt streams to each peer’s network and PC environments without heavy transcoding, and it includes a multi-component stream protection module that compensates for network jitter and packet loss.

About SPIRIT

SPIRIT DSP is the world’s top voice and video over IP engines provider. SPIRIT’s innovative carrier-grade voice and video software platform allows carriers, OEMs and software developers to deliver superior quality and integrated voice and video over IP services for telcos, cable and mobile service providers, enterprises, internet portals and social networks. More than 200+ million channels in 80+ countries are based on SPIRIT’s platforms. SPIRIT software platforms power popular products from Apple, Adobe, ARM, AT&T, Blizzard, BT, China Mobile, Cisco, Ericsson, HP, HTC, Huawei, KT, Kyocera, LG U+, Microsoft, NEC, Oracle, Polycom, Radvision, Samsung, Skype, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Veraz, Viber, ZTE, among 250+ others. SPIRIT’s direct OEM customers jointly exceed 60 percent of the global smartphone market share. VideoMost.com is the SPIRIT spin-off for multi-point video-web-conferencing service. For more information, visit www.spiritdsp.com.

CEVA is a developer of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) cores, which they license in the form of synthesizable (i.e. soft) Intellectual Property (IP) for integration in Systems on a Chip (SoCs). By partnering with providers of application-specific software IP, CEVA has been able to adapt the soft-modem architecture of the CEVA-XC323 core for use in a variety of applications, such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and 3G/4G wireless infrastructure equipment. Mindspeed has licensed the CEVA-XC323 as the core of their software-defined radio in the Transcede processor for LTE base stations. Now, in preparation for the upcoming January 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), CEVA has announced a collaboration with IDEA! Electronic Systems to apply the CEVA-XC323 in Digital Television (DTV) demodulators, starting with the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting Terrestrial (ISDB-T) standard which is used in Japan, Brazil and other countries in South America.

Eyal Bergman, Director of Product Marketing at CEVA, says that TV manufacturers have a need for a single, universal demodulator chip that can support the variety of standards that have been developed for terrestrial, satellite, cable and mobile TV broadcasting. Currently, manufacturers need to maintain inventories of multiple standard-specific DTV demodulators, says Bergman, in order to address markets worldwide. A universal software-defined DTV demodulator will eliminate that problem, and enable integration of the function into application processors in 2-3 years, according to Bergman.

CEVA’s Bergman says that the lack of a universal DTV design has been a barrier to SoC integration up until now, but that he expects that application processor vendors such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments are working to incorporate such functions in the future, targeting tablet computers that are expected to increasingly be used as alternate screens for viewing TV content. He contrasts the CEVA approach, based on a communications-specific DSP core, to competitors such as Mirics who build their software demodulator on general-purpose processors such as ARM cores. These solutions have relatively weak processing capabilities, says Bergman, and result in higher cost for embedded applications.

In comparison, CEVA’s approach is to build a complete software-defined subsystem by combining the XC323 core with the appropriate hardware accelerators and interconnect fabric required for a targeted application. In this latest example, by partnering with IDEA! for the ISDB-T IP, CEVA has been able to develop a software-defined DTV reference platform. SoC integrators can make use of CEVA tools and software libraries to configure a device for multiple DTV standards. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) can then modify and control the platform in specific TVs through software APIs. At CES, CEVA and IDEA! will demonstrate the DTV reference platform on an FPGA-based prototype of a complete ISDB-T receiver.

Enhanced DSP Library Harnesses Intel® 256-bit AVX Instruction Set for Acceleration of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Algorithms

ASHBURN, VA – December 14, 2011 — Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, a business group of Curtiss-Wright Controls and a leading designer and manufacturer of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) VME, VPX, VXS and CompactPCI products for the rugged deployed defense and aerospace market, has announced an enhanced, updated version of its comprehensive DSP function library, Continuum Vector, that is optimized for use with Intel’s new 2nd Generation Core i7 processors. Designed for use in aerospace and defense signal processing applications such as radar, sonar, and SIGINT, the Continuum Vector DSP function library provides a rich set of signal processing subroutine building blocks. It speeds the development of embedded signal processing systems and eases the migration of hundreds of legacy platforms based on AltiVec-based DSP libraries to new Intel processor based designs.

The newly optimized version of Continuum Vector enables developers of military signal processing applications to easily access the power of the Intel’s 256-bit floating point AVX instructions one of the major enhancement introduced with Intel’s 2nd Generation Core i7 processor. With its wider 256-bit registers, AVX instructions support twice as many floating point elements as previous SSE implementation, effectively doubling performance. Many DSP algorithms can take advantage of these wider instructions. For example, commonly employed FFT functions show up to 1.8x improvement in performance when performed with AVX.

“Continuum Vector has established itself as a powerful tool for system integrators building and developing demanding signal processing applications,” said Lynn Bamford, vice president and general manager of Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing. “This is our second major release of Continuum Vector with support for Intel processors, and demonstrates Curtiss-Wright’s leadership in providing support to customers who want to migrate their legacy PowerPC® radar and SIGINT applications to the newest generation of DSP hardware.”

Continuum Vector features over 140 commonly used DSP functions, and supports native operation on Intel-based desktop computers (running Linux). It enables developers to generate algorithms on a desktop PC environment before target hardware becomes available, to significantly reduce development time and speed time to market. The new Intel AVX-optimized version of Continuum Vector uniquely retains the same API as earlier AltiVec-based versions, but enables compiling on an Intel-based platform. The library supports the industry standard VSIPL interface, as well as an industry standard API.

The Continuum Vector library enables algorithm developers to work with high-level signal-processing functions instead of complicated low-level programming. Continuum Vector is supported on all of Curtiss-Wright Controls’ Intel processor-based single board computers and signal processing engines, including the CHAMP-AV8, VPX6-1956 and VPX3-1256.

The Continuum Vector Library provides Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that are compatible with other popular board vendor function library APIs. It also supports the industry standard Vector Signal Image Processing (VSIPL) interface API’s as well as the Continuum Vector API.

Continuum Vector Features:

* Signal Processing Library 

* Supports native operation on desktop PCs 

* Industry-standard APIs and open- standard APIs including VSIPL 

* VxWorks and Linux support 

Performance benchmarking reports are available. Please contact the factory for more information.

For pricing information, please contact the Factory.

Sales inquiries: Please forward all Sales and reader service inquiries to Jerri-Lynne Charbonneau, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, Tel: (613) 254-5112; Fax: (613) 599-7777; e-mail: sales@cwcembedded.com.

For editorial information regarding Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing products or services, contact John Wranovics, Director of Media Relations, Curtiss-Wright, Tel: (925) 640-6402; email. jwranovics@curtisswright.com. Web site: www.cwcembedded.com.

About Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing

Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing is the industry’s most comprehensive and experienced single source for embedded solutions, ranging from Processing, Subsystems, Data Communication, DSP, and Video & Graphics to the most advanced board level components and fully integrated custom systems. The Embedded Computing group serves the defense, aerospace, commercial and industrial markets and is part of Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc.

About Curtiss-Wright Controls, Inc.

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Curtiss-Wright Controls is the motion control segment of Curtiss-Wright Corporation. With manufacturing facilities around the world, Curtiss-Wright Controls is a leading technology-based organization providing niche motion control products, subsystems and services internationally for the aerospace and defense markets. For more information, visit www.cwcontrols.com/.

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