DSP Developer's Kit Expedites Imaging And Video System Prototyping

To accelerate the development of advanced imaging and video applications, Texas Instruments Inc., Dallas, Texas, has readied a developer's kit that includes a complete reference design and all of the necessary hardware components and applications software.

Based on TI's TMS320C6000 platform, this integrated development environment (IDE) includes a 150-MHz DSP board with snap-on daughter card for high-speed video input/output, an NTSC/PAL-compatible video camera, imaging and video application programs, application software utilities and example programs, and a Code Composer Studio IDE. Additionally, a wide range of software modules based on JPEG 2000 and MPEG-4 standards are in the works from third parties.

According to TI's C6000 product marketing manager, Pradeep Bardia, "This development platform handles massive amounts of compression, decompression, transcoding, and transrating among standards and protocols, encryption, and error correction that are essential in applications that transmit images and video over high-speed broadband networks."

While the DSP board includes 16 Mbytes of high-speed SRAM, data-formatting logic, and a voice-band audio codec, the capture/display daughter card incorporates the required data converters and power-management chips, along with video decod-ing/encoding circuits. To expedite development, TI has crafted a library of 22 imaging and video kernels for the VLIW-based C62X DSP core used in this design.

"By giving developers one complete package that includes all the hardware, key algorithms, and development tools needed to design and prototype advanced imaging and video applications," says Will Strauss, president of market research firm Forward Concepts, "users will have easier development and faster time-to-market than ever before."

Although the current board uses a 150-MHz C6211, designers can easily port the applications and code developed to eight other code-compatible members of the C62X family. With clock speeds up to 300 MHz, the C62x members offer a wide range of memory, peripheral, and performance options. Furthermore, the design environment is upward compatible, so designers can quickly port object code developed on the C62X core to DSPs based on the latest advanced C64X core capable of clocking at speeds up to 1 GHz.

For additional information, visit www.ti.com/sc/c6000.