Tag Archives: DSP and floating point

Digital audio recording “you” with quality and ease


Instamic wants to do for microphones what the GoPro did for cameras. 


Many analog years ago, digital recorded audio won the popularity contest. Nowadays, whether it’s from your mobile phone, infotainment system or personal audio device, every sound you hear is from digitally encoded bits.

Digital audio has eliminated all of the analog audio’s distortions and noise-related problems. Quite simply, people are shaped and drawn to recorded audio, ranging from music producers, to creative artist, to the everyday consumer. It’s in these moments for the user, high-quality audio conveys clarity in the recording moments. In today’s user interfaces, from media and podcasts to tablets, many whizzing bits are streaming a world of information including audio — readily available at every reach of a finger or ear.

The Miracle of Sound all Around US

More and more, we are seeing the prolific expansion and seamless integration of the stack. What does this all mean, though? Screen time now captivates us, while voice recognition and audio are blended into the user pathways of UX. Spurring from technology, we see popular apps like Evernote and iOS/Android natively adopting audio recording right within its inherent interface. These apps are taking in the voice user input to also drive UX — cleverly weaving experience, intention, outcome, commenting and moments.

Almost every sound you hear coming out of a speaker is digitally sampled and encoded.  Moment upon moment of keynotes stored are recorded more, albeit in the format of video or audio, we are seeing an increasing number of unique use cases to why one would want to capture a particular moment. These moments offer an on-demand periscope — referencing a historic timeline of ripples in our experience, memory, and journey through work, life, play, and what matters most to us.

referencing a historic timeline of ripples in our experience

For much of our pleasures, sound is always in digital — whether it’s on your smartphone, computer, radio, television, home theater or in a concert hall. Today, across many electronic devices, audio recording is integral transition to many advanced features applied toward enhancing old ways of doing things. Just take a look at visual voicemail, and how recording voicemails took the next leap once UX and advance playback was offered. Visual and digital voice recording meshed with non-linear play, took voice playback to the next level. I’d go so far as to point out that most people never hear analog recordings anymore.

Unless you’re a musician, or live with one, virtually all the music you hear live or recorded is digital. We now see the integration of audio and voice recording into all forms of day-to-day activity. Audio with depth is helping bring back some of those analog qualities where the shape and length of a sound wave can be more defined by bit depth and bit sampling rate. With these 24-bit audio embedded designs and digital audio recordings, we can also achieve better sound quality more akin to what our ear can register and decode, help bringing forth the finer granular details of high fidelity. But it’s not all about just emitting fidelity via the digital audio recording. The use cases and need to record audio, albeit ourselves or surrounding interactions, is helpful for many use cases (musician during creative process, senior suffering stages of memory loss, students seeking catalog of lectures, author recalling and commenting wiring plots during writing process, etc.)lectures and applications for audio recording
Why does bit depth matter, you ask? Bit depth refers to the number of bits you have when a device is capturing audio. Below is a graph showing a series of levels in how bit depth works. There are 65,536 possible levels for 16-bit audio. As for 24-bit, there are 16,777,216 levels. Now, let’s see how the depth is explained. The capturing of audio can be sliced in partitions at any moment in time such as shown in this  graph. To move to higher resolution in audio, every bit added counts toward greater resolution. The deeper the bit depth, the number of levels stack greater audio information, layering richer context to the profile of the audio being recorded. Altogether, what’s said describes a segment of audio frozen in a single slice or moment of time.

The second integral “high quality” factor is called sample rate. Together, bit depth and sample rate complete the higher resolution audio model. The sample rate represents the number of times your audio is measured or “sampled” per second. The typical standard for CDs, the sample rate is 44.1 kHz or 44,100 slices every second.
bit depth and sample rate explained

Digital audio eliminated all of analog audio’s distortions and noise-related problems. In that sense digital is “perfect.” When analog recordings are copied, there are significant generation-to-generation losses, added distortion and noise; digital-to-digital copies are perfect clones. Some recording engineers believe digital doesn’t have a sound per se, and that it’s a completely transparent recording medium. Analog, with its distortions, noise and speed variations imparts its own sound. Arguably, perfect, it is not. This is why high resolution in audio paired with the best form factor and ease and usability go hand in hand.

As to whether digital composes sounds with better quality than analog, that’s merely a moot point. Digital audio recording and its very nature of having the ability to slice into segments and layer, then import into other applications and change into enhanced or analyzed into wave forms has been remarkable and pivotal for many industries. In fact, we now see results of digital audio having a significant impact when having the ability to vector to angular and distinct wave form shapes as to help identify voices and interpret intelligent voice recognition. These encoding factors coupled with deep learning programmatic layers are ushering in a new era of digital interpretation and digital recognition.Instamic-every-day-use
Despite such a proposal of questionable technical and audible merits, founder of Instamic Michelle Baggio apparently moved ahead with the idea and recently launched a well-funded Indiegogo campaign for a new audio and player designed to revive factors of instant usability and simplicity that has been squeezed out of digital recording. Thoughts and experience can now be easily captured or reduced to a series of moments, but it is in this very reason for being captured that one can traverse thoughts by memorable experience to episode, so we as users can stitch what’s most meaningful to formulate a mosaic of audio recordings to help serve a purpose.  Whether it’s for applications in medical, academics, business, music or film, the list goes on and on… even a victim of memory impairment can find good use for Instamic.

Instamic isn’t just an ordinary microphone. It happens to be the smartest, smallest and most affordable digital audio recorder that is also easy to operate, combining usability with the smartphone. It attained over 2,500+ backers and crowdfunding exceeding 539% its original campaign goal. With that many backers and goals funded beyond expectations, there are good market/application factors yielding wider acceptance and adoption of more and more of these audio recording tools. Instamic can function as the day-to-day voice logging tool of choice.go-pro-likeness-recording-revolution
We have now leaped into the “Recording Revolution.” GoPro had an effect on the video revolution, opening up a periscope and view into so many never before seen vantage points. Previously, only a number of people had access to seeing. Adventures and passions of people, shared from around the world into showcases for all to experience what they had seen. Giving an eagle’s eye into the experience of many, providing a viewport into those that would never have seen amazing video capture. The recording revolution is upon us and will grow. Instamic is a mic build and made for everyone. Not only is this recording device at 24-bit, the sample rate matches industry high resolution standards at 96khz sample rate. That’s right, based on the aforementioned bit sampling description, that puts the recording at high resolution of 96,000 slices of audio sampled per second.

Instamic Pro and Instamic

Instamic records at 96khz/24-bit, having both mono and dual-mono while its Pro version even boasts stereo recording. This simple but advance digital recorder features omnidirectional polar pattern. Omnidirectional polar pattern records and performs ideally based on its small form factor. A peek inside reveals the architecture of quickly including minimal-phase digital filtering, zero-feedback circuitry, one of the “best sounding” DAC -nabled chips available with dual 2Msps, 12-bit DAC and analog comparator, and an all-discrete output buffer.

Instamic has the ideal form factor — it’s tiny and can be virtually attached to anything. As a standalone recorder, given the right price and origin of this idea, it can very well replace conventional handheld and lavaliere microphones. Packed with mounting options (magnet, velcro and tape) and a quick release clip, the super portable gadget can register hours of 48khz/24-bit sound in mono and dual mono mode, as well as in stereo quality with its Pro variant. A built-in, rechargeable battery allows for roughly four hours of uncompressed audio recording, with duration varying slightly depending on charge time, temperature and storage conditions.

Instamic has a frequency response of 50 to 18,000Hz. Try doing this with current smartphones or other devices, and batteries will drain quick. Then, recording is sensitive having a frequency response of 50 to 18,000Hz. Instamic crams big recording power into a small form factor which is highly usable because it can be tucked into anything. Simplicity seems to always rule the day especially when it comes to electronic devices looking to shape or better the way we do things in a day to day basis. What the GoPro did for cameras, this gadget wants to do for microphones.

What the GoPro did for cameras, this gadget wants to do for microphones

Given its compact design and minimal setup, Instamic is the perfect accessory for filmmakers, journalists and musicians as they will no longer need to lug around all that bulky, obtrusive equipment. Eliminating the need for cables, the wearable unit connects to its accompanying app over Bluetooth and enables users to control it remotely within a 30-foot radius, as well as simultaneously record with multiple Instamics. What’s more, the mic has been designed with the latest Atmel | SMART SAM 70S MCU, comprising 2GB to 8GB internal memory.

Turning on the pocket-sized device requires a single tap of its logo, while another touch will begin the recording. From there, Instamic will automatically adjust the gain on its own in the first 10 seconds and will ensure that it remains at the optimal level. Tap and hold again for a second and it will stop. If paired with a smartphone, Instamic can also be controlled through its app. When a user needs to transfer a recording to their desktop, its microUSB charging port doubles as the file transfer system. Instamic comes in two models: Pro and Go. The Pro version’s waterproof, black shell makes it a suitable instrument for indoor filming sets, darker environments and even in five feet of water. Meanwhile, the splash-resistant, white Instamic exterior of the Go can remain inconspicuous in most bright, day-lit settings. Both can camouflage easily with custom design covers and handle the most windy conditions wearing Instamic Windshield.Easy USB Charging and 4 hour use and recording
How is this being done inside? Intrigued? You can head over to its Indiegogo page to delve a bit deeper. This Bay Area-based startup has already met its crowdfunding goals and now quickly developing their products with the Atmel SMART | SAM S70, a high-performance ARM Cortex-M7 core-based MCU running up to 300MHz. The MCU comes with analog capability, fitting 12-bit ADCs of up to 24 channels with analog front end, offering offset error correction and gain control, as well as hardware averaging up to 16-bit resolution. SAM S70 also includes 2-channel, 2Msps, 12-bit DAC.

But that’s not all. It’s combined with high-capacity memory with up to 2MB Flash and 384kB SRAM and DSP encoding capabilities (DSP functionality that can be further grown into its roadmap). DSP features can be broadly extended well into its product roadmap. Even more is to happen, inclusive in the roadmap is the SAM S70 MCU doing the encoding and decoding of the audio signals, enhanced with its ability to process deterministic code execution and truly expand on the stereo quality functionality packed with Omnidirectional polar pattern, providing the best quality mapping and single processing for an mcu, outputting workhorse processing power of an MPU.  This 32-bit ARM Cortex M7 processor also features a floating point unit (FPU).  Now with quality mapped to bit depth and bit sampling, the number crunching math required to compute an enormous layers of bits is astounding

The FPU further bolsters high quality audio by executing float point processing to render audio temporarily in a 32 bit floating point format. The recorders will render audio temporarily while the extra bits are added onto the file after recording to allow generous headroom for audio mathematics in the digital domain in memory.  Before the file is output it will go through the 24 bit converters. “Floating point” scales the decimal point in a calculation and processing even more so. Furthermore, having 32 rather than 24 registers for calculations is going to render increasingly accurate result. With strings of only 24 numbers, it would be theoretically impossible to allow for other extensive calculations. Yet, when the data hits the 24-bit converter 8 bits are “truncated” or cut off.  The said mathematical result is simply more accurate and as a result, we get high resolution output of the audio.

Instamic’s MEMS microphones offer a breakthrough innovation in sound sensing. Having sound recorded with an omnidirectional microphone response (similar to sound studio environments) is generally considered to be a perfect sphere in three dimensions. The smallest diameter gives the best omni-directional characteristics at high frequencies. Yes, indeed there’s always something new to learn. This is the compelling reason that makes the MEMS microphone the best mmni-directional microphone. Industry wise, MEMS microphones are entering new application areas such as voice-enabled gaming, automotive voice systems, acoustic sensors for industry and security applications, and medical telemetry. What was once unthinkable early on, the unique construction of the MEMs microphone combined with performance and form factor make it all possible.

Instamic Pro Features and Functionality

instamic-pro-spec

MEMS Microphone Specifications

instamic-mems-microphone

Recorder Specifications

spec-recorder-instamic

Frequency Response Specifications

spec-frequency-instamic

Comparison Specifications

spec-specification-table-instamic-comparison

Comparisons at Scale

spec-comparisons-scale

Once again, Instamic originally stems from the well-funded pool of contributing patrons. The community has supported and validated this product’s potential for an ideal application to market fit. With this said, the demand is real. Shoot for the stars, right? Powered by Atmel’s latest Cortex-M7, Instamic is looking to become a household name when it comes to capturing high-quality sound anywhere, at anytime, on anything.

How to prevent execution surprises for Cortex-M7 MCU


We know the heavy weight linked with software development, in the 60% to 70% of the overall project cost.


The ARM Cortex-A series processor core (A57, A53) is well known in the high performance market segments, like application processing for smartphone, set-top-box and networking. If you look at the electronic market, you realize that multiple applications are cost sensitive and don’t need such high performance processor core. We may call it the embedded market, even if this definition is vague. The ARM Cortex-M family has been developed to address these numerous market segments, starting with the Cortex-M0 for lowest cost, the Cortex-M3 for best power/performance balance, and the Cortex-M4 for applications requiring digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities.

For the audio, voice control, object recognition, and complex sensor fusion of automotive and higher-end Internet of Things sensing, where complex algorithms for audio and video are needed for rich audio and visual capabilities, Cortex-M7 is required. ARM offers the processor core as well as the Tightly Coupled Memory (TCM) architecture, but ARM licensees like Atmel have to implement memories in such a way that the user can take full benefit from the M7 core to meet system performance and latency goals.

Figure 1. The TCM interface provides a single 64-bit instruction port and two 32-bit data ports.

The TCM interface provides a single 64-bit instruction port and two 32-bit data ports.

In a 65nm embedded Flash process device, the Cortex-M7 can achieve a 1500 CoreMark score while running at 300 MHz, offering top class DSP performance: double-precision floating-point unit and a double-issue instruction pipeline. But algorithms like FIR, FFT or Biquad need to run as deterministically as possible for real-time response or seamless audio and video performance. How do you best select and implement the memories needed to support such performance? If you choose Flash, this will require caching (as Flash is too slow) leading to cache miss risk. Whereas SRAM technology is a better choice since it can be easily embedded on-chip and permits random access at the speed of processor.

Peripheral data buffers implemented in general-purpose system SRAM are typically loaded by DMA transfers from system peripherals. The ability to load from a number of possible sources, however, raises the possibility of unnecessary delays and conflicts by multiple DMAs trying to access the memory at the same time. In a typical example, we might have three different entities vying for DMA access to the SRAM: the processor (64-bit access, requesting 128 bits for this example) and two separate peripheral DMA requests (DMA0 and DMA1, 32-bit access each). Atmel has get round this issue by organizing the SRAM into several banks as described in this picture:

Figure 2. By organizing the SRAM into banks, multiple DMA bursts can occur simultaneously with minimal latency.

By organizing the SRAM into banks, multiple DMA bursts can occur simultaneously with minimal latency.

For a chip maker designing microcontrollers, licensing ARM Cortex-M processor core provides numerous advantages. The very first is the ubiquity of the ARM core architecture, being adopted in multiple market segments to support variety of applications. If this chip maker wants to design-in a new customer, the probability that such OEM has already used ARM-based MCU is very high, and it’s very important for this OEM to be able to reuse existing code (we know the heavy weight linked with software development, in the 60% to 70% of the overall project cost). But this ubiquity generates a challenge: how do you differentiate from the competition when competitors can license exactly the same processor core?

Selecting a more aggressive technology node and providing better performance at lower cost are an option, but we understand that this advantage can disappear as soon as the competition also move to this node. Integrating larger amount of Flash is another option, which is very efficient if the product is designed on a technology that enables it to keep the pricing low enough.

If the chip maker has designed on an aggressive technology node for higher performance and offers a larger amount of Flash than the competition, it may be enough differentiation. Completing with the design of a smarter memory architecture unencumbered by cache misses, interrupts, context swaps, and other execution surprises that work against deterministic timing allow bringing strong differentiation.

Pic

If you want to more completely understand how Atmel has designed this SMART memory architecture for the Cortex-M7, I encourage you to read this white paper from Jacko Wilbrink and Lionel Perdigon entitled “Run Blazingly Fast Algorithms with Cortex-M7 Tightly Coupled Memories.” (You will have to register.) This paper describes MCUs integrating SRAM organized into four banks that can be used as general SRAM and for TCM, showing one example of a Cortex-M7 MCU being implemented in the Atmel | SMART SAM S70, SAM E70 and SAM V70/V71 families.


This post has been republished with permission from SemiWiki.com, where Eric Esteve is a principle blogger, as well as one of the four founding members of the site. This blog was originally shared on August 6, 2015.

Atmel tightens automotive focus with new Cortex-M7 MCUs


Large SoCs without an Ethernet interface typically have slow start-up times and high-power requirements — until now. 


Atmel, a lead partner for the ARM Cortex-M7 processor launch in October 2014, has unveiled three new M7-based microcontrollers with a unique memory architecture and advanced connectivity features for the connected car market.

According to a company spokesman, E70, V71 and V70 chips are the industry’s highest performing Cortex-M microcontrollers with six-stage dual-issue pipeline delivering 1500 CoreMarks at 300MHz. Moreover, V70 and V71 microcontrollers are the only automotive-qualified ARM Cortex-M7 MCUs with Audio Video Bridging (AVB) over Ethernet and Media LB peripheral support.

Cortex-M7-chip-diagramLG

Atmel is among the first suppliers to introduce the ARM Cortex-M7-based MCUs, whose core combines performance and simplicity and further pushes the performance envelope for embedded devices. The new MCU devices are aimed to take the connected car design to the next performance level with high-speed connectivity, high-density on-chip memory, and a solid ecosystem of design engineering tools.

Atmel’s Memory Play

Atmel has memory technology in its DNA, and that seems apparent in the design footprint of E70, V70 and V71 MCUs. The San Jose-based chipmaker is offering a flexible memory system that is optimized for performance, determinism and low latency.

Jacko Wilbrink, Senior Marketing Director at Atmel, said that the company’s Cortex-M7-based MCUs leverage Atmel’s advanced peripherals and flexible SRAM architecture for higher performance applications while keeping the Cortex-M class ease-of-use. He added that the large on-chip SRAM on SAM E70/V70/V71 chips is critical for connected car and IoT product designers since it allows them to run the multiple communication stacks and applications on the same MCU without adding external memory.

On-chip DMA and low-latency access SRAM architecture

On-chip DMA and low-latency access SRAM architecture

Avoiding the external memories reduces the PCB footprint, lowers the BOM cost and eliminates the complexity of high-speed PCB design when pushing the performance to a maximum. Next, Tim Grai, another senior manager at Atmel, pointed out another critical take from Cortex-M7 designs: The tightly coupled memory (TCM) interface. It provides the low-latency memory that the processor can use without the unpredictability that is a feature of cache memories.

Grai says that the most vital memory feature is not the memory itself but how the TCM interface to the M7 is utilized. “The available RAM is configurable to be used as system RAM or tightly-coupled instruction and data memory to the core, where it provides deterministic zero-wait state access,” Grai added. “The arrangement of SRAM allows for multiple concurrent accesses.”

Cortex-M7 a DSP Winner

According to Will Strauss, President & Principal Analyst at Forward Concepts, ARM has had considerable success with its Cortex-M4 power-efficient 32-bit processor chip family. “However, realizing that it lacked the math ability to do more sophisticated DSP functions, ARM has introduced the Cortex-M7, its newest and most powerful member of the Cortex-M family.”

Strauss adds that the M7 provides 32-bit floating point DSP capability as well as faster execution times. With the greater clock speed, floating point and twice the DSP power of the M4, the M7 is even more attractive for applications requiring high-performance audio and even video accompanying traditional automotive and control applications.

Atmel’s Grai added an interesting dimension to the DSP story in Cortex-M7 processor fabric. He pointed out that true DSPs don’t do control and logical functions well and generally lack the breadth of peripherals available on MCUs. “The attraction of the M7 is that it does both—DSP functions and control functions—hence it can be classified as a digital signal controller (DSC).”

Grai quoted the example of Atmel V70 and V71 microcontrollers used to connect end-nodes like infotainment audio amplifiers to the emerging Ethernet AVB network. In an audio amplifier, you receive a specific audio format that has to be converted, filtered, modulated to match the requirement for each specific speaker in the car. So you need Ethernet and DSP capabilities at the same time.

Grai says that the audio amplifier in infotainment applications is a good example of DSC: a mix of MCU capabilities and peripherals plus DSP capability for audio processing. Atmel is targeting the V70 and V71 chips as a bridge between large application processors and Ethernet.

Most of the time, the main processor does not integrate Ethernet AVB, as the infotainment connectivity is based on Ethernet standard. Here, the V71 microcontroller brings this feature to the main processor. “Large SoCs, which usually don’t have Ethernet interface, have slow start-up time and high power requirements,” Grai said. “Atmel’s V7x MCUs allow fast network start-up and facilitate power moding.”

The SAM E70, V70 and V71

Atmel’s three new MCU devices are aimed at multiple aspects of in-vehicle infotainment connectivity and telematics control.

SAM E70: The microcontroller series features Dual CAN-FD, 10/100 Ethernet MAC with IEEE1588 real-time stamping, and AVB support. It’s aimed at automotive industry’s movement toward controller area network (CAN) message-based protocols holistically across the cabin, eliminating isolation and wire redundancy, and have them all bridged centrally with the CAN interface.

SAM V70: It’s designed for MediaLB connectivity and leverages advanced audio processing, multi-port memory architecture and Cortex-M7 DSP capabilities. For the media-oriented systems transport (MOST) architecture, old modules are not redesigned. So Atmel offers a MOST solution that is done over Media Local Bus (MediaLB) and is supported by the V70 series.

SAM V71: The MCU series ports a complete automotive Ethernet AVB stack for in-vehicle infotainment connectivity, audio amplifiers, telematics and head control units. It mirrors the SAM V70 series features as well as combines Ethernet-AVB and MediaLB connectivity stacks.


Majeed Ahmad is the author of books Smartphone: Mobile Revolution at the Crossroads of Communications, Computing and Consumer Electronics and The Next Web of 50 Billion Devices: Mobile Internet’s Past, Present and Future.

What is real SAM V71 DSP performance in automotive audio?


The integrated FPU DSP (into the Cortex-M7 core) is using 2X the number of clock cycles when compared with the SHARC21489.


Thinking of selecting an ARM Cortex-M7-based Atmel SAM V70/71 for your next automotive entertainment application? Three key reasons to consider are the clock speed of the the Cortex-M7 (300 Mhz), the integration of a floating point (FPU) DSP, and last but not least, because the SAM V70/71 has obtained automotive qualification. If you delve deeper into the SAM V70/71 features list, you will see that this MCU is divided into several versions integrating Flash: 512 KB, 1024 KB or 2018 KB. And, if you compare with the competition, this MCU is the only Cortex-M7 supporting the 2 MB Flash option, being automotive qualified and delivering 1500 CoreMark — thanks to the 300 MHz clock speed when the closest competitor only reach 240 MHz and deliver 1200 CoreMark.

SAMV71-Auto-Infotainment-System

In fact, what makes the SAMV70/71 so unique is its FPU DSP performance. Let’s make it clear for the beginning, if you search for pure DSP performance, it will be easy to find standard DSP chip offering much higher performance. Take the Analog Device AD21489 or Blackfin70x series, for example. However, the automotive market is not only very demanding, it’s also a very cost sensitive market as well.

Think about this simple calculation: If you select AD21489 DSP, you will have to add external flash and a MCU, which would lead the total BOM to be four to five times the price associated with the SAM V71. (Let’s also keep this AD21489 as a reference in terms of performance, and examine DSP benchmark results, coming from third party DSP experts DSP Concept.)

FIR Benchmark

Before analyzing the results, we need to describe the context:

  • FIR is made on 256 samples block size
  • Results are expressed in term of clock cycles (smaller is better)
  • All DSP are floating-point except Blackfin
  • Clock cycles count is measured using Audio Weaver

To elaborate upon that even further, this FIR is used to build equalization filter — the higher Taps count, the better. If we look at the “50 Taps” benchmark results, the SAM V71 (Cortex-M7 based) exhibits 22,734 clock cycles (about three times more than the SHARC21489). Unsurprisingly, the Cortex-M4 requires 50% more, but you have to integrate a Cortex-A15 to get better results, as both the Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 need 30% and 40% more cycles, respectively! And when looking at standard Analog Devices Blackfin DSP, only the 70x series is better by 35%… the 53x being 30% worst.

Now, if you want to build a graphic equalizer, you will have to run Biquad. For instance, when building eight channels and six stages graphic equalizer, your DSP will have to run 48 Biquad.

Biquad Benchmark

Again, the context:

  • Biquad is made on 256 samples block size
  • Results are expressed in term of clock cycles (smaller is better)
  • All DSP are floating-point except Blackfin
  • Clock cycles count is measured using Audio Weaver

In fact, the results are quite similar to those of the FIR benchmark: only the Cortex-A15 and the SHARC21489 exhibits better performance. The integrated FPU DSP (into the Cortex-M7 core) is using twice the amount of clock cycles when put side-by-side with the SHARC21489. If you compare the performance per price, the Cortex-M7 integrated in the SAMV71 is 50% cheaper! Using a SHARC DSP certainly makes sense if you want to build high performance home cinema system, but if you target automotive, it’s much more effective to select a FPU DSP integrated together with Flash (512KB to 2MB) and a full featured MCU.

The Atmel SAM V71 is specifically dedicated to support automotive infotainment application, offering Dual CAN and Ethernet MAC support. Other notable specs include:

  • 10/100 Mbps, IEEE1588 support
  • 12 KB SRAM plus DMA
  • AVB support with Qav & Qas HW support for audio traffic support
  • 802.3az Energy efficiency support
  • Dual CAN-FD
  • Up to 64 SRAM-based mailboxes
  • Wake up from sleep or wake up modes on RX/TX

Don’t forget that when looking to construct an automotive high-end radio, you still need room for Ethernet MAC and AVB support… What’s more, the SAM V71 only consume 68% of the DSP resource, leaving well enough space for both AVB and Ethernet MAC.

Interested? Explore the Atmel | SMART SAM V ARM Cortex-M7 family here. More information about the the DSP benchmark can be also found on DSP Concept’s website.  Also, be sure the detailed DSP Concept’s audio processing benchmarks.


This post has been republished with permission from SemiWiki.com, where Eric Esteve is a principle blogger as well as one of the four founding members of SemiWiki.com. This blog first appeared on SemiWiki on May 6, 2015.