Wireless Base Station DSP Performs 800 MMACs/s

Claiming a performance boost of more than 50% compared with existing solutions, the DSP16410 digital signal processor for wireless base stations performs up to 800 million multiply-and-accumulate (MAC) operations per second. It also is said to consume up to five times less power (0.38W) and, at 15 mm x 15 mm, is less than one-third the size of competing devices. These features help to dramatically lower component and system costs of base stations while increasing overall performance and versatility. The DSP16410 is the second chip based on the company's 16000 DSP core. A key feature of the new IC is its ability to process more than 3.5X more voice channels in the same board area as other devices. As a result, base-station designers can fit more DSPs on the same-size board or develop smaller boards and use fewer DSPs. The chip contains two DSP 16000 cores and holds over 3 Mbits of RAM. It can be used in all wireless voice and data standards, including third-generation wideband CDMA, narrowband CDMA, GSM and TDMA.