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AUSTIN, Texas--Jan. 20, 2003--Motorola, Inc., set a standard for professional audio systems in movie theaters and recording studios when its first 24-bit DSP was introduced in 1987. Building on the success of the DSP5636X family, Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector announced the launch of its next-generation high-performance DSP optimized for both professional and consumer audio applications. The DSP56371—designed to meet the demands of emerging digital audio decoders from Dolby technology, DTS technology, and others—offers a new level of performance in integration, speed, and power, simplifying systems design and driving system costs down. The versatile DSP56371, adaptable for Audio/Video (AV) receivers, surround-sound decoders, DVD players, digital TV audio systems, and automotive audio systems, is the newest member of Motorola's DSP Symphony Digital Audio family.
"When you have one of the most successful Digital Audio DSP families, people are always asking, 'How are you going to go further?'" said Motorola Vice President Bill Pfaff. "Motorola has kept pace with the rapidly expanding audio technology market as it has developed over the last decade, and continues to set standards for audio processing. The introduction of the DSP5637X family marks a giant step forward in digital audio technology and offers a huge boon for consumers who have come to expect superior quality and more variety in their entertainment choices."
The DSP56371 is a continuation of Motorola's popular audio architecture that started with the 56000 core and continued with the 56300 series. It is the first in an advanced family of audio DSP products expected to meet the needs of future generations of digital audio applications. The DSP56371 integrates virtually all the memory needed for most digital audio applications. For systems aiming to optimize features and cost, the pin and function-compatible DSP56372—with about half the integrated memory—is expected to follow in 2003. The advanced System-on-a-Chip (SoC) design methodology allows for rapid proliferation of the DSP5637X family, and allows it to take advantage of the latest process technology and integration potential.
The DSP5637X family is fully compatible with the DSP5636X family's open-software architecture that is designed to allow software to be easily programmed and customized. Because it can handle virtually all major multi-channel decoding standards, it is set to meet the requirements of the most demanding audio engineering professionals. The DSP563xx family has been employed in professional systems in recording studios, movie theaters, and CD mastering, while the consumer market has used Symphony Digital Audio 5636x DSPs for AV systems, headphones, home theaters, and car radios.
Benefits include:
- Expanded Memory Capacity—With more than 88K words of RAM, the DSP56371 has almost four times the memory of the DSP5636x series. This is engineered to allow allows the elimination of external SRAM memory that has been used in current systems using the popular DSP56367 that perform DTS 96/24, AAC Multi-channel, and Dolby Headphone. The solutions also include 120Kw of ROM for Motorola-supplied decoders, which leave room for future decoders to be added.
- Peripherals from the 5636x Family
- Direct Memory Access Controller [DMA]
- Two Enhanced Serial Audio Interfaces [ESAI] (12 serial data lines with 4 dedicated outputs & 8 selectable as input or output—each can support I2S and other stereo audio formats including TDM mode)
- DAX dedicated SPDIF transmitter
- On-chip PLL for DSP core clock
- SHI (supports SPI and I2C Master/Slave)
- Triple-Timer Module
- OnCE module for hardware debug
- Integrated SPDIF Rx/Tx
- Enhanced Filter Coprocessor (EFCOP)—The dedicated FIR and IIR filter engine are engineered to allow the core to do other functions concurrently.
- Enhanced Processing Power—The DSP56371 is designed to provide excellent performance for accomplishing the latest audio algorithms. In 2002, Motorola's DSP56367 provided a single-chip DSP solution to implement DTS 96/24, bass management, and delay management. The DSP56371, when being clocked at 180 MHz, has more than 50% of the performance available after doing DTS 96/24, bass management, and delay management. The increase in performance comes from higher core frequency, fewer memory wait states by using on-chip SRAM, and EFCOP concurrency.
- Reduced Power Dissipation—The DSP56371 consumes very little power. Two additional low-power modes—Stop and Wait—help to further reduce power requirements. Wait is a low-power mode in which the core is shut down, but the peripherals and interrupt controller continue to operate so that an interrupt can bring the chip out of Wait mode. In Stop mode, even more of the circuitry is shut down for the lowest power consumption.
- Integrated System—Each on-chip execution unit, memory, and peripheral operates independently and in parallel with the other units through a sophisticated bus system. The combination of ROM and RAM keeps it cost-effective.
- Fast Time-to-Market—New features may be integrated much more quickly via software instead of waiting for new silicon.
- Supports Standard Audio Decoders—The DSP56371 meets the demands of digital decoders such as Dolby Digital, Digital Theater Systems (DTS) digital surround, DTS-ES (matrix and discrete), DTS 96/24, and AAC Multichannel.
- Open-Software Architecture—Customer-defined, Motorola and third-party post-processing features can be easily added. These include bass management, 3D virtual sound, Lucasfilm THX Surround EX, Lucasfilm THX Ultra 2, Dolby Digital Surround EX, Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS Neo: 6, Dolby Headphone, Dolby Virtual Speaker, HDCD, Waves MaxxBass, SRS Circle Surround, QSurround, soundfield processing, subwoofer management, advanced equalization, and more.
Pricing and Availability
Samples and development tools for the DSP56371 are expected to be available at the end of 1Q03, with production to begin in 3Q03. Samples of the DSP56372 are expected to be available during the second half of 2003. The DSP56371 is expected to be priced at a suggested retail price of $9.95 for 100,000-unit quantities.
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The press release refers to the "first in an advanced family of audio DSP products…," so what makes this part worthy of that designation rather than being an upgrade or just an addition to an existing family? Motorola manufactured its previous generation of audio DSPs with a hard macro, explains John Hansen, director of marketing for Driver Information Systems, which in turn is part of the Transportation and Standard Products Group. To shrink those older devices down to the latest process technology, the company decided to start the chip design all over again, but in doing so they shifted everything over to soft macros. The goal was to keep the core, thereby retaining support for a considerable amount of legacy software that has built up, but they also wanted to be able to more easily add peripherals and features. As Hansen puts it, they took the old core and added a "gasket" that on one side is compatible with all of Motorola's SoC designs. He thus can pull existing peripherals from the 8-,
16-, and 24-bit product families as needed, greatly speeding new designs.
Indeed, admits Hansen, making this shift meant that there was more than the normal delay from the last generation to this one, but now new chips can come out the chute far more quickly. In actuality, the first chip based on the soft macro and gasket was the MC540211, a baseband audio processor for the Symphony digital radio, which arrived last October. For the 56371, the topic of this release, Motorola started with that baseband processor, removed the radio peripherals, added a filter coprocessor for digital audio, added some high-speed serial peripherals, and increased the amount of SRAM. The 56371 will arrive in June, and it will be followed by the end of the year by another 563xx family member, and there's another part about which Hansen can't yet give any details. The bottom line is that within 12 months the firm has been able to pump out four different parts from the same base, which indicates the ease with which they can take the core and add peripherals and features to create products
optimized for specific markets.
The most-recent previous announcement in the digital audio family, one with a hard macro, was the 56367, which came at the end of 2000. And while the new part at $9.95 (100,000 qty) sells for about the same price, Hansen is confident that the total system cost should drop significantly with the new chip. One improvement is more internal memory, increasing from 23K words (24 bits wide) to 88K words, which can be used for either programs as well as x or y data. Hansen believes that this amount of memory is sufficient for many audio applications. The earlier version was sufficient for a single-chip implementation of the DTS 96/24 algorithm, and now there's considerable more memory for other tasks and advanced algorithms.
Not only does this extra memory mean you might not need external memory, there's actually no means of connecting any directly to the 56371, although you could move data in and out through its many high-speed serial ports. One fallout of this decision is that without an external memory interface, the package size drops from 144 pins to 80 pins, both in a quad flatpack. Eliminating the high-speed memory interface also makes a system PC-board far easier to route, adds Hansen, because those memory traces are often the most critical and the toughest to route. Now it's feasible to create products using a 2-layer board, or even a single-layer PCB.
Furthermore, integrating memory, thereby eliminating the overhead associated with external RAM, is a key factor in improving the overall performance by a factor of two compared to the predecessor chip, while bumping the clock rate up only by 20% (now to 180 MHz). Putting an IIR/FIR engine in hardware also contributes to this performance boost. From that last fact you can infer that the power boost won't be in effect for just any arbitrary algorithm. Indeed, as a performance benchmark Hansen prefers not to speak in terms of raw MIPS or MMACS because "180 MIPS doesn't tell the whole story." Instead, he likes to talk about what he considers the "most expensive" audio process in terms of performance: DTS 96/24. For those of you not familiar with it, it's an algorithm from Digital Theater Systems that uses 24-bit resolution and 96 kHz sampling on 5.1 channels of audio. The previous device, as noted, was able to handle that algorithm all by itself. Now, though, the 371 can do that job and have half of
its horsepower available for other tasks—customers can do their value-added thing, or third parties can write even more sophisticated algorithms with the knowledge that there's a one-chip solution out there.
Before leaving the topic of memory, don't be misled by one spec on the press release. It implies that there's only one DMA controller, which is true. However, that one controller implements six simultaneous channels, and thus does the same amount of work as the previous processor in the family, which specs six DMA controllers.
Also new on the part are two new power modes. The press release says that the chip consumes "very little power," but what exactly does that mean? Well, Motorola hasn't yet fully characterized the part, but they have simulations that give some indication of what you can expect. The core voltage is 1.2 V (peripherals use 3.3 V and are 5 V tolerant). In standard Run mode the chip should draw < 100 mA, and the firm quotes a power figure of roughly 119 mW at 180 MHz with the 88K words of internal memory. That's not too much higher than the DSP56367, which with its 23K words of memory consumes 104 mW when running at 150 MHz. Making the new device even more attractive for power-sensitive applications are two new power-down modes—in Wait mode the current draw drops to <65 mA, and in Stop mode the current draw is < 2 mA.
Now let's turn to development tools. The chip does feature a JTAG port for emulation interfacing, and while its data-download speed is only in the range of kilobits/second, Hansen points out that many developers prefer to use the I²C or SPI serial buses even during the development process. Also important for development are software tools, and Motorola supplies a variety of no-charge compilers and other aids, which are especially important in Asia where cost is a key consideration. As for development hardware, in March you can look for a 56371 daughtercard (expected price $250) that sits on top of a $750 motherboard that serves as the basis for the evaluation platform for multiple devices. Interestingly, Hansen mentioned as an aside that this product announcement was gated more by the availability of this daughtercard than it was by the silicon itself.
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