Houston, TX — (press release excerpt) — Texas Instruments (TI) today unveiled its newest dual-core (RISC + DSP) embedded processor. The OMAP5910 combines the real-time processing capabilities and low power consumption of TI's TMS320C55x DSP core, the flexibility and scalability of a TI-enhanced ARM925 microprocessor, and ease of use through an optimized interprocessor communication mechanism. The OMAP5910 is intended to extend the inherent advantages of TI's OMAP platform to new consumer, business, and industrial applications such as digital media, biometrics, location-based services, enhanced gaming, and telematics.

The OMAP5910 enables embedded developers to program using familiar development environments by supporting leading operating systems including Linux. This familiar development environment makes it possible for designers to deliver innovative products to the market faster, utilizing familiar tools, a standard application programming interface (API) and a seamless interface to the DSP through an optimized interprocessor communication mechanism. The built-in interprocessor communication mechanism eliminates the need for developers to program the RISC and DSP independently, greatly reducing programming time and complexity.

TI's OMAP5910 addresses the fundamental challenges facing designers, optimizing the performance of both real-time, processing-intensive tasks and control functions. When a RISC processor performs both tasks, performance of each is compromised. However, by combining an ARM RISC processor (suited to orchestrating command and control) with a DSP (ideal for computation-intensive signal processing tasks), system performance can be optimized, with specific tasks performed by the most appropriate device.

The OMAP5910 delivers system-on-a-chip functionality with unparalleled peripherals including: 192 Kbytes RAM, USB 1.1 host and client, MMC/SD card interface, multi-channel buffered serial ports, real-time clock, GPIO and UARTs, LCD interface, SPI, uWire, and i2s.

Fully integrated development environments and board support packages (BSPs) for the Innovator Development Kit are scheduled to be available before the end of 2002 for Linux and other operating systems.

The OMAP5910 is available today in sample quantities, and production devices are scheduled to be available beginning in the first quarter of 2003. eXpressDSP, evaluation modules and other development tools are available immediately from TI.

 
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