Very-Low-Power DSPs Extend Battery Life

The TMS320VC5505 and TMS320VC5504 digital signal processors feature very low standby and active power levels, up to 320 kbytes of on-chip memory, and multiple integrated peripherals that reduce system cost by more than 20%. With standby power of less than 340 µW and active power of less than 0.3 mW/MHz, the DSPs provide up to 40% longer battery life. Running at 100 MHz, the C5505 offers the right combination of performance, standby, and active power levels for products such as noise-cancellation headphones, musical instruments, medical monitoring, biometrics, and seismic detectors. The lower-cost C5504 is pin-to-pin and software compatible with the C5505 device and offers the same power efficiency and performance with a reduced peripheral set. It is suitable for end products such as portable voice recorders, MP3 players, and other emerging portable applications that do not require as much on-chip memory, an integrated display controller, or FFT hardware acceleration. To help customers get started quickly, the company also released the C5505 DSP EVM, which can be used with both the C5505 and C5504 processors and comes ready with application demos and code. Both devices are available for sampling. The TMS320VC5505 costs $6.75 and the TMS320VC5504 costs $5.60, both in quantities of 1000. The C5505 DSP EVM is available now and costs $395. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC., Houston, TX. (972) 644-5580.