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Towards object-based audio with Tensilica’s 4th-gen HiFi DSP Architecture IP

Towards object-based audio with Tensilica’s 4th-gen HiFi DSP Architecture IP

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By eeNews Europe



This fourth generation HiFi architecture enables emerging multi-channel object-based audio standards and offers twice the performance versus the HiFi 3 DSP, suiting it for DSP-intensive applications including digital TV, set-top box (STB), Blu-ray Disc and automotive infotainment.

With emerging object-based audio standards, individual sounds become objects that can be placed anywhere in a room. Instead of being mixed at a recording studio, these sounds are mixed on-the-fly at each location where they are played back. The object-based audio system calculates where the sound should emanate from so that it appears in roughly the same space, no matter where speakers are located. This provides a more natural and immersive sound experience, but requires much more DSP processing power. Instead of having to use multiple DSPs to accomplish this, designers can now – Cadence says – get the DSP power they need from one core – the HiFi 4 DSP.

Cadence’s Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP is a highly optimised audio/voice processor geared for efficient execution of audio and voice codecs and pre- and post-processing modules as well as other demanding DSP functions in areas such as wireless communications. Its key features include:

– Support for four 32×32-bit multiplier-accumulators (MACs) per cycle with 72-bit accumulators, more than double the performance of other audio DSPs for computationally intensive functions such as fast Fourier transform (FFT) and finite impulse response (FIR)

– Support for eight 32×16-bit MACs per cycle under specified conditions

– Four very long instruction word (VLIW) slot architecture capable of issuing two 64-bit loads per cycle

– Optional vector floating-point unit available, providing up to four single-precision IEEE floating-point MACs per cycle

– Software compatible with the existing HiFi DSP family consisting of over 140 HiFi-optimised audio and voice codecs and audio enhancement software packages.

Cadence; www.cadence.com/news/hifi4

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