TI DSP falls off the Omap

In a departure from its historically DSP-centric strategy, Texas Instruments this week will announce its OMAP35x processor family. The parts are the first broad-market devices to use the ARM Cortex-A8 architecture, a CPU four times faster than the ARM9 and twice as fast as the ARM11.

The processors sidestep the multicore complexity of the original OMAP architecture's heterogeneous DSP-plus-ARM approach, while providing a stronger support structure that borrows from TI's successful DaVinci video-processing line. TI's goal is to extend OMAP, originally optimized for handsets, to a broader range of low-power computing apps such as mobile Internet devices, personal navigation systems, embedded gaming and portable medical equipment.

Until now, nearly all of TI's broad-market ARM chips included a DSP coprocessor. "TI still sees an incredible amount of value with its DSP processor technology," said OMAP marketing manager Gerard Andrews, but the company sees an opportunity to grow in other segments. "We are addressing those segments with a scalable platform that allows us to have both DSP- and non-DSP-based processors," Andrews said.

The OMAP35x family has four members. The entry-level OMAP3503 features a superscalar ARM Cortex-A8 CPU operating at 600 MHz. The others supplement the ARM CPU with a 2-D/3-D graphics engine, a multimedia subsystem or both.

The OMAP35x will compete with a variety of ARM-based chips, such as Freescale Semiconductor's i.MX31 and Marvell's PXA3xx. All of the competitors are roughly comparable in terms of price and power consumption, but TI clearly leads in performance. The entry-level OMAP3503 has at least a 20 percent speed advantage over its nearest rival.

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The OMAP35x will also compete to a limited extent with X86-based solutions. The TI device offers less performance than X86-based solutions, but at a trade-off of much lower cost, lower power consumption and smaller footprint.

Although the OMAP35x is TI's first general-purpose ARM processor, it is not the company's first foray into the general-purpose market. TI initially attempted to sell it OMAP chips to the general market when it launched its OMAP59x family in 2002, but met with only limited success.

The original OMAP product line suffered from a developer-unfriendly ARM-and-DSP architecture. Most of the targeted programmers were not experts in multicore development, nor were they adept at programming DSPs. Thus, many of TI's potential customers were scared off by the architectural complexity.

Unlike past OMAP devices, which used TI's C55x DSP, the OMAP35x borrows the C64x+ DSP and video accelerators from TI's DaVinci product line. The switch is important, because the DaVinci architecture is supported by application programming interfaces and development tools that let developers use the multimedia subsystem without programming the DSP.

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TI has also introduced a level of support that was sorely missing on its earlier OMAP offerings. "The original OMAP was very targeted; it was positioned for handsets," said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at In-Stat. "Beyond that, TI didn't have the resources allocated. With this product line, they are coming out with a much richer suite of solutions."

The support solutions begin with an OMAP35x evaluation module that in- cludes a touchscreen LCD, connectivity options like Ethernet and USB 2.0, and S-video and DVI outputs. The module runs Linux 2.6.22. A Windows CE 6.0 board support package will ship next quarter.

TI's ability to offer such a complete solution stems partly from its experience in the handset market: The OMAP35x is similar to the OMAP34x, announced a year ago for mobile handsets. "They've had a learning experience introducing OMAP as an application processor," In-Stat's McGregor noted.

The OMAP35x is a strong contender in the general-purpose, low-power computing market, but the battle for the title of "world's fastest ARM" is poised to get heated. Freescale in particular is likely to pose a challenge: Along with TI, Freescale was an initial licensee of the Cortex-A8.

The OMAP3503 and the evaluation module are sampling. The OMAP3503 is priced at $25.95 per 100 units and the evaluation module at $1,499. The rest of the family will sample in the second half.

Kenton Williston is DSP DesignLine site editor.