TI, ADI view the DSP world of 2007

www.52RD.com　2006年12月7日　我爱研发网　K.C. Krishnadas
BENGALURU, India — Texas Instruments Inc. and Analog Devices Inc., two of the world’s largest DSP players, see a lot changing in that realm next year. And, with few exceptions, their views on the change vary more about the degree than the nature of it.
"We are in a significant transition in the market," said Gene A. Frantz, a general fellow and business development manager in TI’s DSP unit. "We are . . . seeing the market change to where a DSP is now an enabler. For instance, you could look at the DaVinci and call it a DSP or a DSP-enabled platform, but I think the latter reflects its use better. In this enabled world, what we are creating is the platform and thus helping the system companies to make products."
Frantz said the DSP industry is likely to start subdividing markets that have video and imaging in common in 2007 and TI believes the coming year will see an emerging market in which video and imaging are common.
Frantz plans to start debating low vs. ultralow power. In low power, performance, not power, is the first priority while in ultralow power, power takes priority over performance. "We must see how much power we can save with our DSPs, given a certain performance loss and these kinds of trade-offs. Low-power designs — for automotive vision, medical imaging and surveillance products — are already getting into demonstration platforms while ultralow-power designs — for implantable medical devices and smart sensors — will take two to five years," he said.
He expects significant change in ultralow power, more in terms of design and development, not revenue. The year will also see more focus by DSP bigwigs on medical applications, which Frantz considers the next big market.
For Analog Devices, radical, long-lasting change in DSP will be brought on by the spread of new electronic devices with their always-on connectivity and portability, said Gerald A. McGuire, general manager for convergent platforms and services in the DSP and Systems and Products Division. There will be more convergence, he said, and "we will push the performance vector more. Starting next year, strengthening toward the year-end and pouring into 2008, the global DSP business will meet an inflection point brought on by a new wave in the history of DSPs — social networking — where a class of devices drives social networking."
The devices include portable music players and mobile TVs and making the media at home wirelessly available to the car and the office. The earlier waves driven by telecom deregulation and the current phase of growth in which mobile communications is driving DSP growth will coalesce to form the social networking wave, McGuire said.
"Pricing will be important in handheld devices, but unless DSP offerings include the processing of high-performance audio and video, DSP firms will not have a play in the space at all," he said. "DSPs must have higher levels of programmability and performance to implement the software."
Analog Devices will pay even more attention next year to architectural innovation that expands the market for programmable DSPs, McGuire said. It will look at broadening the development base around DSPs to help make DSPs accessible to engineers — even those who are not directly trained in DSP skills — for programming.