Texas Instruments has revealed a low-power processor roadmap for 2009 that includes more than 15 new multi-architecture devices across four product lines. A breakthrough, the company says, will be the industry’s lowest power floating-point DSPs, the TMS320C674x family. For the first time, designers will be able to bring portability to applications requiring the high-precision and fast time-to-market provided by floating-point processors. The roadmap also includes the industry's lowest power fixed-point DSP, the TMS320C550x, which is expected to enable maximum battery life in portable products. Further, customers will have the option to design portability and feature rich GUIs into their products using TI's new ARM9 and ARM9-plus-DSP system-on-chips.
“Throughout recent years, customers big and small have approached TI with a focus on pure performance, but there has been a shift in the last year or so and developers' first question is now, ‘This is my power budget; how can TI help me do more with it?,’” said Gene Frantz, TI principal fellow. “The answer is somewhat simple—decades of experience allow TI to cut power consumption, improve ease-of-use and drive performance within its architectures through better process technology, peripheral integration, parallel processing, analog, connectivity, and power management software and tools."
Silicon and associated software and tools will begin sampling in Q4 2008 and will roll out throughout the next twelve months. Prices will vary by device but will start at less than $9 each for 100 units. Various processors within the C640x, OMAP-L1x and C674x product lines offer software and pin-for-pin compatibility, allowing engineers to start their development efforts today with existing devices and then lower power consumption and add features with new devices in the near future. For more information, visit www.ti.com/lowpowerprocessors.
Click here for a video interview with John Dixon, product manager for Low Power Processors at Texas Instruments.