Tensilica HiFi EP Audio DSP IP Core
Tensilica launched HiFi EP, which is a superset of the HiFi 2 architecture that is optimized for simultaneous multichannel codec support and/or continuously expanding audio pre- and post-processing in home entertainment products such as Blu-ray Disc players, digital television (DTV), and Smartphones. HiFi EP has also been enhanced for efficient, high-quality voice pre- and post-processing. The enhancements result in up to 40% lower power and up to a 50 percent size reduction.
The HiFi EP Audio DSP features a 32×24 MAC (multiply accumulator) for higher performance at lower power on the DTS Master Audio Lossless decoder used in Blu-ray Disc devices. DTS Master Audio decoding on the HiFi EP DSP requires only 115 MHz of processing power, a savings of over 40% compared to other licensable DSP cores, thus reducing power consumption and making it possible to implement a full Blu-ray-Disc-capable home entertainment audio subsystem on only one HiFi EP core. Other DSP architectures require the use of 2 on chip DSPs — translating into an increase of 2x or more in chip area and power.
Because of the efficiency of the architecture, power consumption is minimized making HiFi EP ideal for low-power portable applications. To address the increasingly demanding requirements in mobile and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) applications for better immunity to background noise and speakerphone mode quality, new instructions have been added to accelerate voice pre- and post-processing for noise cancellation and beam forming microphones. These instructions also provide better general DSP capabilities.
Tensilica also enhanced the cache memory subsystem for HiFi EP DSPs with a predictive prefetch unit to improve performance in high memory latency SOC designs while preserving ease of programming. In a Blu-ray Disc SOC with a typical 100 cycle memory access latency to off-chip memory, a HiFi EP DSP can run the complete worst-case workload Blu-ray Disc suite (DTS Master Audio Lossless 5.1 ch @ 192 kHz, DTS Express 5.1 ch. at 48 kHz, upsample, downsample, mixing and DTS Transcode to 5.1 ch. at 48 kHz) in only 384 MHz. Competing architectures often require 600 to 800 MHz of DSP bandwidth for the same workload.
More information: Tensilica
If you are familiar with RSS feeds, you can also sign up for our free blog feed. Our RSS feed is updated in real-time while our newsletter is updated daily.
