ARM 11 and MIPS 24K both provides clock rate up to 500MHz or even 550MHz. That's an incredible high frequence and thus very high performance. But I wonder what kind of application requires such high frequence? I think handheld product will NOT carry server level application. A 200MHz should be enough for most application run on mobile products. Any idea? Thanks. Jade.
What application requires 500MHz for embedded processors
Started by ●March 5, 2006
Reply by ●March 5, 20062006-03-05
"jade" <jade.emily@msa.hinet.net> wrote in message news:1141537945.642856.286280@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...> ARM 11 and MIPS 24K both provides clock rate up to 500MHz or even > 550MHz. > That's an incredible high frequence and thus very high performance. > But I wonder what kind of application requires such high frequence? > I think handheld product will NOT carry server level application. > A 200MHz should be enough for most application run on mobile products. > > Any idea? > > Thanks. > > Jade.Mobile phones with video and integrated pda etc Like the Samsung chips in some phone pdas. Look at some of the TI omap chips and the DM6446 and the like. If you want to do video and simultaneous audio processing you need a reasonably fast processor and handle the rest of the usual phone and pda type apps. One of the new model Japanese phones has at least 4 way video conferencing using mpeg4. With a lot of mobile phone apps writen in java, even with hardware assist you need a reasonably fast processor. Same with the mobile phones running windows of what ever version. TV / video playback is the latest feature coming with phones. Some newer phone chips have seperate 2d and 3d graphics units. One of the more powerful ones has 3d that is more powerful/better than the original 3dfx voodoo chips. It seems the faster the chip in a phone the larger the software and more bells and whistles in it. Omap and other phone chips are already "dual core" just that the cores are different. Alex
Reply by ●March 5, 20062006-03-05
jade wrote:> ARM 11 and MIPS 24K both provides clock rate up to 500MHz or even > 550MHz. > That's an incredible high frequence and thus very high performance. > But I wonder what kind of application requires such high frequence? > I think handheld product will NOT carry server level application. > A 200MHz should be enough for most application run on mobile products. > > Any idea?Mobile phones? lEON
Reply by ●March 5, 20062006-03-05
jade wrote:> I think handheld product will NOT carry server level application.Try decoding DVD-resolution video in software on a 200MHz processor and see how far that gets you. Java interpreters. 3D rendering. Applications chase high-performance chips, not the other way around.
Reply by ●March 5, 20062006-03-05
"jade" <jade.emily@msa.hinet.net> wrote in message news:1141537945.642856.286280@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...> ARM 11 and MIPS 24K both provides clock rate up to 500MHz or even > 550MHz. > That's an incredible high frequence and thus very high performance.It's not that fast compared to high-end embedded (1+ GHz in networking). The ARM1176 can do 750 Mhz, XScale goes up to 800. The next generation is superscalar and will do 1 GHz. Interestingly the efficiency per MHz is improving, so a 1Ghz Cortex-A8 is ~3 times as fast as a 500Mhz ARM11. If you count SIMD extensions, the factor is higher.> But I wonder what kind of application requires such high frequence? > I think handheld product will NOT carry server level application. > A 200MHz should be enough for most application run on mobile products.One of the reasons for using higher performance CPUs is removing the need for dedicated hardware/separate DSP to do stuff like modem/audio/ video processing. 3G is also a lot more complex, so needs more power. Mobiles are fast becoming PDA's, digital cameras, tv's, movie players, camcorders and games consoles all in one package, while screen sizes, quality and bandwidth are increasing quickly. Software is also becoming more complex as a result, with Windows CE being used in many phones. Java never runs fast enough. All this requires a lot more performance... Wilco
Reply by ●March 5, 20062006-03-05
"Wilco Dijkstra" <Wilco_dot_Dijkstra@ntlworld.com> writes:> Software is also becoming > more complex as a result, with Windows CE being used in many phones. > Java never runs fast enough. All this requires a lot more performance...Which demonstrates that if you throw enough software inefficiencies at a processor, you can kill its performance no matter how fast it is.
Reply by ●March 5, 20062006-03-05
Everett M. Greene wrote:> Which demonstrates that if you throw enough software > inefficiencies at a processor, you can kill its > performance no matter how fast it is.You've seen the Birth sketch from the start of Monty Python's Meaning of Life, right? Where the hospital administrator comes in, knows nothing about anything except that they sold the "ping" machine back to the company they bought it from, then leased it back so that the cost appears on the expenses and not the capital account? By the exact same principle, semiskilled development staff - programming day laborers - are used to develop commercial applications. The BOM cost of the product increases due to the need for faster CPUs and more RAM, but the per-hour engineering rate decreases. Thus, a savings is announced.
Reply by ●March 5, 20062006-03-05
Use processor to do DSP seems not proper. The general tasks run on processor are random but the DSP task is quite uniform in DSP algorithm and implementation. Thus I think it's justified to dispatch heavy loading of DSP to another co-processor instead of run by pure software in processor. Do you have examples in current design that use processor to do DSP? Thanks!
Reply by ●March 6, 20062006-03-06
Everett M. Greene wrote:> "Wilco Dijkstra" <Wilco_dot_Dijkstra@ntlworld.com> writes: > >> Software is also becoming >> more complex as a result, with Windows CE being used in many phones. >> Java never runs fast enough. All this requires a lot more performance... > > Which demonstrates that if you throw enough software > inefficiencies at a processor, you can kill its > performance no matter how fast it is.Wirth's law: Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.
Reply by ●March 6, 20062006-03-06
jade wrote:> Use processor to do DSP seems not proper. > The general tasks run on processor are random but the DSP task is quite > uniform > in DSP algorithm and implementation. > > Thus I think it's justified to dispatch heavy loading of DSP to another > co-processor > instead of run by pure software in processor. > > Do you have examples in current design that use processor to do DSP? > > Thanks!A separate DSP is generally not needed as most of these newer chips (like ARMs) have some DSP instructions. Leon