Freescale Semiconductor has added to its StarCore digital signal processor (DSP) offering for basestation designs with a slimmed down version of its MSC8156.
So the new MSC8155 processor integrates six SC3850 StarCore DSP cores running at 1GHz.
There is a new version of Freescale’s multi-accelerator platform engine acceleration block (MAPLE-B2L) and the newest interconnect Serial RapidIO Gen2 technology.
As a result the DSP supports existing 3G-UMTS, TD-SCDMA and WiMAX basestation deployments and upcoming 3G-LTE standards such as FDD-LTE and TDD-LTE features including Turbo/Viterbi forward error correction (FEC).
“FFT acceleration is x4 faster,” said Scott Aylor, general manager of DSP products for Freescale’s Networking and Multimedia Group.
“The basic performance and the MAPLE-B2L acceleration technology also eliminate the need to incorporate costly FPGAs or develop Asics for 3G-LTE and WiMAX basestations,” said Aylor.
The MSC8155 DSP is code- and pin-compatible with the earlier MSC8156.
Freescale also introduced a 3-axis accelerometer for use in mobile devices, such as smartphones and smartbooks.
The MMA8450Q sensor has already been incorporated in Freescale’s smartbook tablet reference design, which debuted last month at CES 2010.
The sensor features 12-bit digital resolution and is contained in a 3x3x1mm package.
It has an internal first-in/first-out (FIFO) 32-samples/axis (X-, Y- and Z-axis) memory buffer which can speed up time by offloading functions from the host processor.
Using the FIFO buffer along with the embedded functions can allow the end processor to analyse only the required data, while at the same time helping to protect from the possibility of data loss when multiplexing other sensors on the same I2C bus.