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dspZONE Products for the week of May 12, 2008
Freescale Semiconductor Says…
DSP56720/21: Multicore Symphony Audio DSPs Now Available
Symphony DSP56720 and DSP56721 devices support high definition audio standards
Developers and systems designers creating advanced consumer audio products now can leverage the low cost, high performance and board space advantages of Freescale’s Symphony multicore DSP56720 and DSP56721 digital signal processors (DSPs).
Designed to meet demand for increased memory and performance in audio applications, the multicore devices support a range of high definition audio standards and enable remarkable audio experiences for end users of car infotainment systems, A/V receivers, professional audio equipment and more.
The Symphony DSP5672x products are designed to eliminate the need for multi-chip solutions by incorporating two 24-bit DSP56300 cores with 48-bit double precision capability, which handle advanced post processing and the latest decoding standards on the same chip. Across the two cores, the chip completes 400 MIPS and has 400-MHz total processing power, enabling the two Symphony multicore DSPs to meet the audio performance requirements of today’s advanced entertainment solutions.
With the demand for high definition video comes the demand for high definition audio. Consumers want to be immersed in the action with a realistic surround sound experience. High definition audio standards such as DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD are more complex than previous standards and the Symphony DSP56720 and DSP56721 are architected to support these high performance technologies and provide for potential future improvements.
“Dolby is committed to delivering the highest quality surround sound experience through a wide variety of consumer product applications,” said Craig Eggers, senior manager, Consumer Electronics Partner Marketing, Dolby Laboratories. “Dolby Digital Plus complements high definition Blu-ray and broadcast content. Dolby TrueHD, when integrated into Blu-ray disc players, enables audio enthusiasts to experience sound in their homes that is identical to the original studio master. Hardware products that incorporate Freescale’s advanced Symphony DSPs allow consumers to fully enjoy the high definition surround sound experiences provided by these two next-generation audio codecs.”
"High definition audio is leading-edge technology and Freescale has met our exacting quality standards with their implementation of DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio on the Symphony multicore DSP5672x family," said David H. Tan, vice president, Product Management and North American Licensing at DTS.
The Symphony DSP56720 and DSP56721 DSPs feature 248K x 24-bit words of integrated memory. The DSP56720 adds an external memory controller to give the option for expanding memory off-chip or to interface to external parallel peripherals. Both DSPs integrate an S/PDIF transceiver and a 10-channel asynchronous sample rate converter that reduces component cost. Additionally, the direct memory access (DMA) controller has been expanded to support up to eight DMA channels per core for higher bandwidth and more processing.
Code compatible with Freescale’s existing 24-bit DSP solutions, the Symphony DSP56720 and DSP56721 DSPs enable customers to migrate quickly and easily to a higher performance solution. Both devices incorporate the same plug-and-play software architecture used in the Freescale DSP563xx family and support not just standard audio decoders but also enable flexibility and customization of post processing algorithms.
EN-Genius Says…
Freescale’s dual-core incarnation of its venerable 24-bit DSP seems well-suited to delivering the big bump in processing power that the new generation of high-definition codecs demand. Its efficient architecture, faster 200 MHz clock speed (made possible by moving to a 90-nm process) and smart mix of on-chip peripherals should help it compete with the new crop of value-oriented audio processors like TI's DA705/707 devices.
Symphony 24-bit architecture was originally developed for comms-oriented applications like telecom, wireless basestations, and other infrastructure but it quickly found a home in high-end audio consumer applications (home theater, AV receivers, and home mixers) as well as some pro audio mastering and recording equipment where 48-bit precision is not always necessary. Symphony’s good price/performance ratio has also made it popular for complex equalization tasks (and some audio decode applications) in automotive infotainment systems. And if your application demands it, Symphony does have a 48-bit precision mode that allows you to trade in some of your available MIPS to provide support for precision-intensive tasks. One common application where 48-bit precision makes a difference is the low-frequency domain processing techniques that Freescale uses in its Bass Manager package.
Instead of simply jamming a couple of DSPs onto the same chip and hoping for the best, Freescale has put some careful thought into its dual-core implementation. They’ve made sure that the processors have enough separate resources to run well independently but have an efficient interconnect and enough shared elements that they can work together without much performance degradation. Each core has its own timer module, audio serial interface, serial host (SPI/I2C), memory (ROM and RAM), parallel host interface and watchdog timers. The cores also share a block of SRAM, a SPDIF audio data transceiver, a 10-channel sample rate converter, and an external memory controller that can connect to DRAM, SRAM, Flash, or EPROM.
 The DSP5672x inter-core communication module processes and manages interrupts and provides programmable arbitration between cores for access to memory or peripherals. This allows you to operate the cores as a cascaded serial pipeline or to take a parallel approach where each core has its own dedicated bit stream. Having two cores to play with can also simplify development by allowing one core to run the standard algorithms provided by Freescale or third-party vendors to be run in one core, and let you develop custom applications (like room equalization or ambience simulation) to run on the second one without having to worry about competing for processor cycles or memory resources. Speaking of pre-developed functions, Symphony on-chip ROM-based codes support Dolby, DTS, plus an extensive library of decoders and post-processing firmware. This pre-packaged code, plus the power of two DSPs should make it easy for your application to meet the demands of the new HD decode standards that can require up to 5x the MIPS of previous generations.
The DSP56720 and DSP56721 are in production in LQFP-144 priced at $11.21 in 10-k piece lots.
Product Brief DSP56720
Product Brief DSP56721
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