Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!polyslo!cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu!mdeale
From: mdeale@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu (Myron Deale)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: New TI DSP chip
Message-ID: <13664@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 18 Aug 89 04:39:55 GMT
References: <2380@taux01.UUCP> <3533@epimass.EPI.COM>
Sender: news@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU
Reply-To: mdeale@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu.UUCP (Myron Deale)
Organization: ACS, Cal Poly, San Luis
Lines: 41

In article <3533@epimass.EPI.COM> jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) writes:
>In article <2380@taux01.UUCP> gideon@nsc.nsc.com ( Gideon Intrater) writes:
>>I heard that TI has announced recently a new DSP chip (think its called -
>>320C50). Does anyone know what can this beast do ?  Is it any faster than the 
>>Motorola DSP96000 ?  Can it do Floating-Point or just Fixed-Point arithmetic ?
>
>TMS320C30.  It is a 32-bit floating point DSP; it does not resemble

   There is a 'C50. EE Times, among other publications, has a pre-
announcement of the chip: 16-bit integer (ie. fixed-point), 57MHz clock,
35 ns MAC, about 1e6 transistors. Mainly intended for embedded control
applications, has some glue-type peripheral enhancements on-board. In
addition, the 'C50 has 8K Words program/data RAM on-board, supports a
four-wire serial test bus (ala IEEE p1149.1), and "the C50 handles
interrupts with no overhead, for faster processing of even complex
interrupt routines."

   Doesn't look all that impressive at first glance, in fact the
interrupt stuff reminds me a little of TI's non-conformist and
sometimes dingy past. Not as fancy as the C30, however, there appears
to be enough good stuff to recommend it. I wonder how well it
performs in comparison to the DSP16A (from ATT), the 25 ns version?

>in about the same league as the DSP96000 in terms of performance,
>though I don't know as much about the 96k as about the C30.  By the
>way, can you get 96000's yet?

   The 96000 looks slightly faster than the C30. A more humane register
set-up too, as far as programmers are concerned. I would guess they are
sampling, with production a ways off. That's a guess, I'll have to call
to make sure. [Follup-To: comp.dsp, if/when it's created]

>
>By the way, Todd Day (todd@ivucsb.sba.ca.us) is now conducting the
>official vote for the creation of comp.dsp.  Send yes votes to
>yes@ivucsb.sba.ca.us and no votes to no@ivucsb.sba.ca.us.
>-- 
>-- Joe Buck	jbuck@epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck

-Myron
// mdeale@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu