 |
Jerry McGuire The Importance of Scalability in Emerging Multimedia Applications
Driven by the need for rich user-experiences with sophisticated 3-D graphics, high fidelity multichannel audio, voice command and control, and high performance video, electronic products of all varieties now require high-performance processing technologies. A flawed and simplistic approach to solving these increasing performance needs is to simply turn up the clock rate, trusting that screamingly-high processor clock speeds represent a complete solution to the problem. This linear, speed-equals-performance "solution" is particularly seductive to chipmakers whose fab technology business models and physics-based innovation mindsets are so wholly wrapped around leveraging their own chip-foundry assets to make chips mechanically faster. But processing needs actually increase exponentially, due to evolving sophistication and complexity of signal processing algorithms, an exponential increase in the size and quantity of data sets to be transmitted, stored, retrieved and processed and the need to simultaneously support multiple algorithms.
Scalability is intrinsically enabled on a number of levels with these advanced architectures. Microarchitectures simultaneously execute multiple instructions, data moves and control functions in a single clock cycle. With powerful and flexible instruction sets, microarchitectures let designers develop and integrate algorithms in the software domain, capitalizing on the inherent flexibility and time-to-market advantages of a software approach. These advanced architectures also process sophisticated control code and signal processing code with equal ease and support processor resource scalability. Relying on a single dimension such as clock speed alone is a poor, and deceptively inaccurate predictor of performance in high-end applications. Truly scalable microarchitectures, on the other hand, represent an open-ended approach that successfully extends to meet the needs of succeeding generations of multimedia application.
Jerry McGuire is a Vice President of Analog Devices' General Purpose DSP Group. His column appears here regularly. |
There is absolutely no sign that consumer and commercial electronics products will slow their relentless quest for increased signal processing and data-throughput capacity.