TI Introduces First DSP Emulator With Bi-Directional Data Streaming at Video Speeds

JTAG Emulator Enables High-Speed RTDX(TM) Data Link at More Than Two Megabytes Per Second and Code Download Speeds at Up to Half a Megabyte Per Second

HOUSTON, May 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- To further enable designers of real-time embedded applications to pinpoint and resolve real-time problems quickly and precisely, Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN - News; TI) today introduced the fastest generation of JTAG emulation technology as part of its real-time eXpressDSP(TM) Software and Development Tools. Compatible with previous TI emulators, the new technology features a high-speed Real-Time Data Exchange (RTDX)(TM) that transfers data bi-directionally between the target processor and the host development platform at more than two megabytes per second (MBps) for unprecedented levels of real-time application visibility. It also offers code download speeds at up to half a megabyte per second, enabling rapid start-up of larger applications. In addition, the new emulator supports Advanced Event Triggering for real-time, non-intrusive debugging and maximum user control in real-time digital signal processor (DSP) and ARM processors. (See http://www.dspvillage.ti.com/xds560pr )

The key issue for real-time developers today is "vanishing visibility," or the increasingly difficult challenge of seeing into the real-time behavior of an executing application. Visibility diminishes as processor speeds increase, and more peripherals, buses and other system components are embedded on the devices. TI has addressed this problem by introducing the XDS560(TM) PCI Bus JTAG Scan-Based Emulator, which represents a major advancement in emulation technology.

"TI pioneered basic visibility techniques for system development of real- time applications over a decade ago with the invention of JTAG emulation, which is now the industry standard," said Bill Novak, emulation technology product manager, TI. "TI is now taking that key innovation to the next level with the XDS560, delivering unequalled levels of visibility and control to real-time developers."

The Real-Time Answer to Vanishing Visibility

The XDS560 emulator is the first DSP emulator to offer high-speed RTDX bi- directional data transfer rates of more than two MBps between the target processor and the host. Previous generation XDS510-class emulators supported a form of RTDX called standard RTDX, which is enabled on all TMS320C5000(TM), TMS320C6000(TM) and ARM processors and is capable of data rates in the range of 10-20 kilobytes per second. The XDS560 also supports standard RTDX on all C5000(TM), C6000(TM) and ARM processors and improves its performance, but also offers high-speed RTDX for enabled processors at data rates of more than two MBps, which is more than 100X faster than standard RTDX over the XDS510. With this 100X improvement in bandwidth and performance far beyond any other competitive technology available in the industry, the XDS560 enables an entire new class of applications to take advantage of RTDX capabilities, including wireless base stations and streaming video servers. The RTDX data is available from TI's Code Composer Studio(TM) Integrated Development Environment (IDE) through an industry-standard Microsoft Component Object Model (COM(TM)) interface to ensure compatibility with other data visualization and analysis applications such as Microsoft Excel(TM) and the MathWorks MATLAB(TM).

Through the XDS560's compatibility with XDS510-class emulators, developers using the previous generation XDS510-class products can improve their capabilities to support the latest features in the newest processors simply by plugging in the XDS560. This protects significant existing customer investments in everything from development tools to custom-built or purchased target boards, RTDX instrumentation, testing harnesses, and training in the environment.

Increased Code Download Speeds Improve Developer Productivity

Another major enhancement with the new XDS560 emulator is the significant increase in code download speeds, up to 8X faster than the XDS510 emulator. As applications become steadily larger, the time spent waiting for embedded code to be downloaded gets longer. Extended program download times are non- productive and frustrating for developers. TI mitigates this delay by offering top-performance code download speeds up to half a megabyte per second, allowing designers the chance to save precious development time and stay focused on their task.

Powerful, Real-Time, Non-Intrusive Event Triggering Speeds Debug

A key capability of the XDS560 emulator is Advanced Event Triggering. This allows complex sequences of events to be defined and evaluated non- intrusively in real-time, before halting the CPU or taking an alternate action. An advanced user interface makes setting even complex conditions simple and uniform across all processors. Together, these features allow designers to get to market faster by enabling even difficult intermittent real-time software problems to be analyzed and fixed more quickly.

Third Parties Extend XDS560 Technology

To enable DSP developers with XDS560 technology, TI has worked closely with companies from the TI third party network to develop additional XDS560- class products. Five companies are announcing availability of XDS560-class emulators featuring Ethernet, USB and PCI bus interfaces to provide designers with a variety of next-generation emulation products for DSP development. For more information on these products, please see: www.dspvillage.ti.com/xds560pr2 .

Availability and Pricing

The XDS560 PCI Bus JTAG Scan-Based Emulator is available today and can be purchased from the TI E-Store at www.dspvillage.ti.com/xds560pr1 and TI authorized distributors. Pricing is $4,995 each in single-unit quantities with a special introductory price of $3,995 for a limited time. The emulator includes an extremely flexible 1.5-meter cable with a low-profile, credit-card sized cable pod that provides a lightweight, flexible and convenient connection to the target system; and auto-sensing voltage capabilities that range from 5V down to 0.5V that will support both existing and future generations of low-voltage DSP and ARM processors. The XDS560 emulator can be ordered using part number TMDX00560.

                 XDS560 Customer and Third Party Testimonials

     Customer Quotes

Polaroid

"At Polaroid, the high-resolution digital photography application that we are developing required transferring increasingly large actual images from the camera through the XDS560 emulator, up to more than 5.5 megabytes. We took advantage of the faster XDS560 code download speeds, helping us to be much more effective as we worked across PC and DSP target platforms. We also found the XDS560 design essential during prototyping to move image data from the camera and printer to the host PC for additional evaluation. It would not have been possible to physically set up our development system without the longer, more flexible cable and the lightweight pod.

        Machiel ten Brinke, Technical Specialist Product & Market Development,
                                      Commercial Imaging, Polaroid Europa B.V.

Ericsson

"At Ericsson, we are currently using the XDS560 emulator to do advanced debugging on our mobile handset platform. With the substantial increases in RTDX speeds offered by the XDS560, we are able to perform real-time OS-level debugging and event tracing with plug-in RTOS tools. As we download code many times a day from the host to mobile handset platform, we enjoy the faster code download speeds, which enable us to significantly shorten test cycles. We previously used the XDS510 emulator and found that we had no trouble migrating to the XDS560 and the process ran very smoothly."

Anders Carlsson, senior staff engineer, Ericsson

Infinetix

"As a leading provider of DSP design services, Infinetix is very pleased with the outstanding throughput of the XDS560 emulator especially its high- speed RTDX capabilities. In developing our DSP radio receiver for automated power meter reading and our DSP based test instrumentation, the high-speed RTDX capabilities of the XDS560 have allowed us to capture data for analysis in real time, something we could not do with previous emulators. Increasing our visibility into our target application, the high-speed RTDX gave us better information for use in development of specialized decoding and filtering algorithms for the digital radio receiver. We are now able to perform more complex RTDX debugging much faster than before."

Bruce Weyrauch, President, Infinetix

APC

"In designing our next generation UPS systems, we were able to take advantage of the increased code download speeds offered by the XDS560 emulator. As the complexity of our application code increased during development of software components, it was more and more important to have faster download time, so that we could quickly make changes and quickly debug these complex components. The higher speed of the XDS560 significantly reduced delays while the program was being loaded onto the target helping us to be much more effective in our design. Also, with the new Advanced Event Triggering capabilities offered with this product, we were able to benefit from the real-time, non-intrusive debugging and maximum user control. Specifically with our design, we were able to quickly and easily set up a hardware breakpoint to find a problem where a memory location appeared to be incorrectly modified by multiple routines."

Thomas Augustinus, software engineer, APC

Ceyba

"When developing one of our optical fiber diagnostic applications, we would have to download the code from the host to the target many times a day. The XDS560 emulator has eased our development with its fast data transfer speed -- turn-around time to download and test our code has never been this fast. The XDS560, along with the Code Composer Studio development tools has made DSP debugging faster and easier than before. Thanks to the substantially faster RTDX data link, we could see the RTOS activity being plotted in real- time while the application was running which gave us much-needed visibility into how the RTOS was performing."

                            Kelvin Kwong, senior software designer, Cebya Inc.


     Third Party Quotes

Ingenient

"As a leading provider of high-performance embedded multimedia software, we are very pleased with the outstanding throughput of the XDS560 high-speed RTDX. The expanding demand for our optimized solutions requires our software to satisfy a growing variety of multimedia system environments. The stability and flexibility of this new emulation platform enables us to efficiently emulate and debug diverse and complex video-centric applications. The XDS560 effectively supports our real-time streaming exchange of encoded video content with an external host over RTDX."

Sami Levi, president and CEO, Ingenient

The Mathworks

"The dramatic speed improvements of the XDS560 JTAG Emulator will allow our product, 'MATLAB Link to Code Composer Studio Development Tools,' to provide unprecedented DSP software development capabilities. With High-Speed RTDX data link, our customers will have incredible visibility into their embedded systems. The high-speed data transfer rates will help developers to visualize and integrate their embedded applications into their host-side simulations in real time. The result will be accelerated development schedules and rapid deployment of new products."

Andrew Dowd, senior DSP engineer, The Mathworks, Inc.

MicroLAB Systems

"The new high-speed RTDX data link offered by TI's XDS560 emulator transfers real-time monitor data frames in my application almost two orders of magnitude faster than before. This has helped us resolve many of the real- time integration issues we've encountered in the time-critical end-user design using our TORNADO-PX/DDC4 quad-channel digital radio receiver coprocessors. As our designs and product become increasingly larger and multi-DSP based, the faster code download speeds have also been a significant advantage in reducing our development time."

                                   Pavel Semyonov, president, MicroLAB Systems


     Quotes from XDS560-Class Emulator Partners

BlackHawk

"Our Blackhawk USB 560 JTAG Emulator is portable, easy to use with plug- and-play installation, offers high compatibility and supports existing XDS510 devices. This emulator provides developers with the fastest and most flexible connection they've ever had. With support for both new and older devices, this USB-based emulator is going to support developers in the lab, in the field and across multiple DSP architectures."

                              Dick Friedel, president, EWA Technologies, Inc.,
                                               the parent company of Blackhawk

Kane Computing

"The Predator-560 will enable our customers to develop and debug new applications more quickly and with fewer problems. TI's new XDS560 emulator takes real-time JTAG scan-based emulation and debugging to a new level of visibility and access, allowing us to extend this technology with the offering of our Ethernet product."

Richard White, managing director, KCL

Signum Systems

"Our JDSnet-560 network interface companion product makes the XDS560 emulator even more powerful by expanding its connectivity, while preserving the high-speed operation. Customers who require network capabilities are able to take advantage of the high-speed RTDX data link and increased code download speeds offered by the XDS560."

Jerry Lewandowski, CEO, Signum Systems

Wintech Digital System Technology Corp.

"The Wintech TDS560LAN Emulator is a perfect solution for clients who need capabilities such as team collaboration and resource sharing, mobile development and on-site and remote debugging. Customers can also enjoy dramatically increased real-time visibility into their design by using the TDS560PCI and TDS560LAN emulators, ultimately speeding their design to market. As a leading DSP tools and system provider, and as a member of TI's third party program, Wintech is committed to work with TI to deliver advanced emulation technology to our clients in Asia and North America."

Yonghong Dong, president, Wintech

TRADEMARKS

All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.