Floating-Point DSCs Seek Green Industrial Apps

Citing a performance boost in the realm of 50% over the company's previous offerings and promising to simplify software development in solar power and other environmental applications, the TMS320F2833x series debuts as the industry’s first floating point digital-signal controllers (DSCs). The devices provide 300 MFLOPS at 150 MHz at reportedly lower costs than fixed-point processors. Some algorithms, i.e., FFT, exhibit a 200% improvement over an equivalent 32-bit fixed-point device. System bandwidth also gets a boost with the addition of a 6-channel DMA controller. Features of the four DSCs in the series include up to 18 PWM channels, up to 512 KB of flash memory, up to 16 KB of RAM, and CAN, I2C, UART, SPI, and the company's multi-channel buffered serial ports. Samples of the F28335, F28334, and F28332 devices will be available in September with qualification to AEC Q-100 for automotive applications. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC., Dallas, TX. (800) 477-8924.