I have a V4FX based product and I'd like to have
a DSP coprocessor to go
with the the powerpc that handles my operating system. Are there TI c54x or
c3x soft cores out there that could be compiled into a xilinx fpga? Could be
anyone's dsp, I suppose, so long as it has a large existing code base and
mature tools.

Also is microblaze an option? Can it do significant DSP?

Thanks,
Clark

"cpope" <c...@nc.rr.com> wrote in message 
news:473cdc7a$0$2339$4...@roadrunner.com...
>Are there TI c54x or
> c3x soft cores out there that could be compiled into a xilinx fpga?
>

You are kidding aren't you! For many years TI have been paranoid about 
application specific FPGA-based designs stealing market share from their 
DSPs. You only have to mention the word "FPGA" to a TI DSP sales or 
marketing person to get their blood boiling. 

"David Spencer" <d...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:i7j%i.187$xt5.59@trnddc07...
>
> "cpope" <c...@nc.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:473cdc7a$0$2339$4...@roadrunner.com...
> >Are there TI c54x or
> > c3x soft cores out there that could be compiled into a xilinx fpga?
> >
>
> You are kidding aren't you! For many years TI have been paranoid about
> application specific FPGA-based designs stealing market share from their
> DSPs. You only have to mention the word "FPGA" to a TI DSP sales or
> marketing person to get their blood boiling.
>
>

Well from TI's perspective seems to me like a chance to make money off of IP
they already have. There is a lot of code out there that for c3x or c4x and
so on that could drop right in to a system like mine. Compared to the NRE to
rewrite an existing app they can charge a fair amount for a core license.
Right now they're probably making nothing off of these old cores.

But it doesn't have to be TI. Motorola or analog devices could do the same.

-Clark

David Spencer wrote:
> "cpope" <c...@nc.rr.com> wrote in message 
> news:473cdc7a$0$2339$4...@roadrunner.com...
>> Are there TI c54x or
>> c3x soft cores out there that could be compiled into a xilinx fpga?
>>
> 
> You are kidding aren't you! For many years TI have been paranoid about 
> application specific FPGA-based designs stealing market share from their 
> DSPs. You only have to mention the word "FPGA" to a TI DSP sales or 
> marketing person to get their blood boiling. 
> 
> 

Actually, a start has been done at opencores:

http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/oc54x/overview

All,

That would make no sense at all (to have a TI DSP soft core) in an FPGA!

It is far less expensive to just buy the part from TI.

As for making TI 'uncomfortable', we consider TI a great partner:  they
sell their DSPs into many markets, and when they can't do something fast
enough, they sell their DSPs and our FPGAs.

If we sell our FPGA into a market, and there is a TI DSP that can do a
job where we are not competitive, we encourage the customer to use TI, too.

Are there some jobs that TI wins, or we win exclusively (the other is
just not needed)?  Sure.  That happens if we were partners, or not.

We sell, they sell.  It is not a "zero-sum" game where there can only be
one winner every time:  we are all winning (customer, Xilinx, TI)!

Customer knows that Xilinx and TI are working together to provide them
with the best solution to their problems.

Austin

"austin" <a...@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:fhl3m9$1...@cnn.xilinx.com...
> All,
>
> That would make no sense at all (to have a TI DSP soft core) in an FPGA!
>

That's like saying it makes no sense at all to have a powerpc or a
microblaze in an FPGA? I have a v4fx system, I'd like a dsp coprocessor. I
don't want to waste the board space or power consumption for a dedicated DSP
since not all applications will need/use it. For wideband signal processing
apps I can use the fpga fabric, for narrowband stuff I can use a softcore
with floating point DSP.

-Clark