Formerly reserved for specialised systems with board space to accommodate multiple processors and off-chip memory, floating point processing is now more accessible and affordable for designers looking to bring high-end processing power to mass market applications. The SHARC 2148x series processor delivers up to 33% greater performance (400MHz) and up to 250% more on-chip memory (5Mb) than existing DSPs. 

For portable devices and applications like advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) that require floating point processing precision with low power consumption and high environmental tolerance, the new 12x12mm SHARC 2147x series processors consume only 363 mW power (typical use-case) – up to 20% less power than competing processors – and deliver performance up to 266MHz with up to 5 Mb on-chip memory to provide more performance and memory integration per square millimetre.

The new SHARC 2148x and SHARC 2147x processors feature dedicated hardware accelerators with independent compute units and DMA memory mapping, enabling the ability to execute FFT/FIR/IIR signal processing operations in the background to free up MIPS for core processing. Memory usage is optimized via Variable Instruction Set Architecture (VISA) support, which can free up as much as 30% of memory space for application code through reductions in instruction opcode sizing.

Application highlights include:

• Best-in-Class price/performance for HD audio and home theatre applications
• Floating Point Precision for radar-based automotive applications/ADAS
• Low power, precision processing for portable medical devices
• Ultra efficient motor control

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