Company:Tensilica
From HandWiki
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| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Semiconductor intellectual property core |
| Fate | Acquired by Cadence Design Systems in 2013 |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Headquarters | San Jose, California |
Key people | Chris Rowen, Jack Guedj |
| Products | Microprocessors, HiFi audio, DSP cores |
| Website | cadence |
Tensilica Inc. was a company based in Silicon Valley that developed semiconductor intellectual property (SIP) cores. Tensilica was founded in 1997 by Chris Rowen.[1] In April 2013, the company was acquired by Cadence Design Systems for approximately $326 million.[2]
Products
Cadence Tensilica develops SIP blocks to be included in chip (IC) designs of products of their licensees, such as system on a chip architectures for embedded systems. Tensilica processors are delivered as synthesizable RTL to aid integration with other designs.
Xtensa configurable cores
Xtensa processors range from small, low-power cache-less microcontroller to more performance-oriented SIMD processors, multiple-issue VLIW DSP cores, and neural network processors.[3] Cadence standard DSPs are based on the Xtensa architecture.[4] The architecture offers a user-customizable instruction set through automated customization tools that can extend the base instruction set, including and not limited to, addition of new SIMD instructions and register files.[5][6]
Xtensa instruction set
The Xtensa instruction set is a 32-bit architecture with a compact 16- and 24-bit instruction set. The base instruction set has 82 RISC instructions and includes a 32-bit ALU, 16 general-purpose 32-bit registers, and one special-purpose register.[7]
Audio and voice DSP IP
- HiFi Mini Audio DSP — A small low power DSP core for voice triggering and voice recognition[8]
- HiFi 2 Audio DSP — DSP core for low power MP3 audio processing[9]
- HiFi EP Audio DSP — A superset of HiFi 2 with optimizations for DTS Master Audio, voice pre- and post-processing, and cache management[10]
- HiFi 3 Audio DSP — 32-bit DSP for audio enhancement algorithms, wideband voice codecs, and multi-channel audio[11]
- HiFi 3z Audio DSP — For lower-powered audio, wideband voice codecs, and neural-network-based speech recognition.[12]
- HiFi 4 DSP - Higher performance DSP for applications such as multi-channel object-based audio standards.[13]
- HiFi 5 DSP - For digital assistants, infotainment, and voice-controlled products.[14]
Vision DSPs
- Vision P5 and P6 DSP.[15][16][self-published source?]
- Vision C5 DSP, for neural network computational tasks.[17][self-published source?]
Adoption
- AMD TrueAudio, available in select GPU products based on the GCN2 microarchitecture, integrates an HiFi EP Audio DSP on-die.[18] Hardware integration of the DSP is dropped since GCN4, with TrueAudio Next switching to a GPGPU-based approach.[19]
- Microsoft HoloLens incorporates a custom coprocessor fabricated on TSMC's 28nm process node, integrating 24 Tensilica DSP cores. It has around 65 million logic gates, 8 MB of SRAM, and 1 GB of low-power DDR3 RAM.[20]
- Espressif ESP8266 and ESP32 Wi-Fi IoT SoCs use respectively the "Diamond Standard 106Micro" (by Espressif referred to as "L106")[21] and the LX6.[22]
- Spreadtrum, licensing the HiFi DSP.[23][self-published source?]
- VIA Technologies, using the HiFi DSP in an embedded SoC.[24][self-published source?]
- Realtek standardized on the HiFi audio DSP for mobile and PC products.[25][self-published source?]
History
- In 1997, Tensilica was founded by Chris Rowen.
- Five years later, Tensilica released support for flexible length instruction encodings, known as FLIX.
- By 2013, Cadence Design Systems acquired 100% of Tensilica.
Company name
References
- ↑ "S-1 Supercomputer Alumni". https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/s1_alumni.html. Retrieved 2019-02-22. "Most recently he was chief architect at Tensilica working on configurable/extensible processors."
- ↑ Source: http://ip.cadence.com/news/432/330/Cadence-Reports-First-Quarter-2013-Financial-Results-and-Completes-Acquisition-of-Tensilica
- ↑ "Cadence DSP Targets Neural Network Development". 2016-05-02. https://www.eetimes.com/cadence-dsp-targets-neural-network-development/.
- ↑ Emilio, Maurizio Di Paolo (2021-07-21). "New Cadence Tensilica DSP supports floating point for optimum PPA" (in en-US). https://www.embedded.com/new-cadence-tensilica-dsp-supports-floating-point-for-optimum-ppa/.
- ↑ https://0x04.net/~mwk/doc/xtensa.pdf §1.2.2
- ↑ Ingole, Anirudh (2019). "Instruction Set Design for Elementary Set in Tensilica Xtensa". 10th International Conference on Computing, Communication and Networking Technologies (ICCCNT). doi:10.1109/ICCCNT45670.2019.8944687.
- ↑ https://0x04.net/~mwk/doc/xtensa.pdf Chapter 3 "Core Architecture"
- ↑ "Tensilica Introduces the Smallest, Lowest Power DSP IP Core For Always-Listening Voice Trigger and Voice Recognition". design-reuse.com. https://www.design-reuse.com/news/31061/tensilica-hifi-mini-dsp.html.
- ↑ "Tensilica HiFi 2 Audio DSP Supports HE AAC by Dolby in Digital Radio Mondiale; Now Offers Decoders for All Major International Digital Radio Standards". design-reuse.com. https://www.design-reuse.com/news/20373/tensilica-hifi-2-audio-dsp-he-aac-dolby.html.
- ↑ "Tensilica Introduces HiFi EP DSP Core for High Quality Audio in Home Entertainment and Smartphone Applications". design-reuse.com. https://www.design-reuse.com/news/22563/tensilica-hifi-ep-dsp-core-audio.html.
- ↑ "Tensilica's HiFi 3 DSP IP Core Provides Over 1.5x Better Performance for Audio Post Processing and Voice in Smartphones and Home Entertainment". 2012-01-11. https://www.electronicspecifier.com/products/design-automation/hifi-3-dsp-tensilicas-15x-better-audio-post-processing-voice-in-smartphones-and-home-entertainment.
- ↑ "Tensilica HiFi 3z DSP IP Core Provides Enhanced Voice and Audio Processing". circuitcellar.com. 2017-07-28. https://circuitcellar.com/tech-news/product-news/tensilica-hifi-3z-dsp-ip-core-provides-enhanced-voice-and-audio-processing/.
- ↑ "Cadence Announces Fourth Generation Tensilica HiFi DSP Architecture". prnewswire.com. 2015-01-06. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cadence-announces-fourth-generation-tensilica-hifi-dsp-architecture-300016314.html.
- ↑ "HiFi 5 DSP". Cadence. https://www.cadence.com/en_US/home/tools/ip/tensilica-ip/hifi-dsps/hifi-5.html.
- ↑ "New Cadence Tensilica Vision P5 DSP Enables 4K Mobile Imaging with 13X Performance Boost and 5X Lower Energy". https://www.cadence.com/content/cadence-www/global/en_US/home/company/newsroom/press-releases/pr/2015/new-cadence-tensilica-vision-p5-dsp-enables-4k-mobile-imaging-with-13x-performance-boost-and-5x-lower-energy.html.
- ↑ "Cadence Announces New Tensilica Vision P6 DSP Targeting Embedded Neural Network Applications". https://www.cadence.com/content/cadence-www/global/en_US/home/company/newsroom/press-releases/pr/2016/cadenceannouncesnewtensilicavisionp6dsptargetingembeddedneuralnetworkapplications.html.
- ↑ "Cadence Unveils Industry's First Neural Network DSP IP for Automotive, Surveillance, Drone and Mobile Markets". https://www.cadence.com/content/cadence-www/global/en_US/home/company/newsroom/press-releases/pr/2017/cadence-unveils-industrys-first-neural-network-dsp-ip-for-automo.html.
- ↑ "Everything You Wanted to Know About AMD TrueAudio". Maximum PC. 2013-10-08. Archived from the original on July 11, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140711104556/http://www.maximumpc.com/everything_you_wanted_know_about_amd%E2%80%99s_new_trueaudio_technology_2013. Retrieved 2014-07-06.
- ↑ "TrueAudio Next" (in en-GB). https://gpuopen.com/true-audio-next/.
- ↑ "Microsoft's HoloLens secret sauce: A 28nm customized 24-core DSP engine built by TSMC". https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/22/microsoft_hololens_hpu/.
- ↑ "ESP8266EX Datasheet". October 2020. https://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/documentation/0a-esp8266ex_datasheet_en.pdf#page=6.
- ↑ "ESP32 SeriesDatasheet". 2021-03-19. https://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/documentation/esp32_datasheet_en.pdf#page=22.
- ↑ "Spreadtrum Licenses Tensilica HiFi Audio/Voice DSP". https://www.cadence.com/content/cadence-www/global/en_US/home/company/newsroom/press-releases/pr/2016/spreadtrum-licenses-tensilica-hi-fi-audio-voice-dsp.html.
- ↑ "Customer Spotlight: VIA Technologies Licenses Cadence Tensilica HiFi Audio/Voice DSP". https://www.cadence.com/content/cadence-www/global/en_US/home/company/newsroom/press-releases/pr/2013/customerspotlightviatechnologieslicensescadencetensilicahifiaudiovoicedsp.html.
- ↑ "Realtek Licenses Cadence's Tensilica HiFi Audio/Voice DSP IP Core". https://www.cadence.com/content/cadence-www/global/en_US/home/company/newsroom/press-releases/pr/2013/realteklicensescadencestensilicahifiaudiovoicedspipcore.html.
External links
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