Floating-Point Processors from Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) has announced three devices that transcend traditional floating-point processors, enabling engineers to design more portable, connected, and high-precision end products. The three devices, based on TI’s C674x DSP core, merge the inherent advantages of floating point with a combination of connectivity peripherals. Giving developers the flexible solutions they need to design both basic and advanced product lines, TI’s processors include the power floating-point DSPs – the TMS320C6745 DSP and TMS320C6747 DSP – as well as the OMAP-L137 floating-point-DSP-plus-ARM applications processor.



TI’s C6745 DSP, C6747 DSP and OMAP-L137 applications processor include USB 2.0/1.1, 10/100 Ethernet and multimedia card/secure digital (MMC/SD) peripherals to ensure that developers can easily add connectivity options to their designs. These peripherals have only been available on fixed-point devices or via separate components but are needed for a broad range of applications that require connectivity for high data transfer or networking/Internet access. In addition to connectivity components, TI’s processors offer varying levels of other on-chip options that provide developers with system performance and prices to best fit their application. With the on-chip integration of TI’s new processors, engineers can eliminate the significant investment in development time and cost associated with adding multiple external components.



The OMAP-L137 applications processor includes the C674x floating-point DSP core plus an ARM9, providing up to 300 MHz per core. With the on-chip ARM9, developers can leverage the floating-point DSP for real-time, processing-intensive computations while off-loading non-real-time tasks to the ARM. The OMAP-L137 is also pin-to-pin compatible with the C6747 DSP, allowing customers to simultaneously develop multiple products with varying feature levels using the different processor options. The OMAP-L137 applications processor also operates at significantly low power levels, using 62mW in standby and 490 mW total active power.