Texas Instruments Introduces Three New Floating-Point Devices Achieving Industry Price/Performance Leadership for High-Quality Audio Applications

New Core Enhances Performance

In response to customers' desire for more audio performance, TI created the C672x devices for high-quality audio applications where audio quality and price/performance ratio are critical. TI developed several innovative optimizations for the new C672x floating-point devices, which are code compatible with TI's entire portfolio of C67x(TM) DSPs to address these market concerns. Improvements include:

   -- Implementing a dMAX DMA engine to offload the processor for
      specialized off-chip memory accesses during effects processing.
   -- Providing new mixed precision instructions, including 32-bit by 32-bit
      multiplication with a 64-bit result and 32-bit by 64-bit
      multiplication with a 64-bit result, to improve high-quality FIR and
      IIR filter performance efficiency in high-sample rate, low-frequency
      audio applications.
   -- Including a flat-memory model for more deterministic application
      performance.
   -- Doubling the number of internal registers from 32 to 64 to improve
      performance in register-bound kernels, as well as making compiler
      optimizations easier.
   -- Doubling the number of concurrent floating-point add instructions from
      two to four to boost FFT processing by 20 percent.
   -- Increasing the size of instruction cache from 4K to 32K to reduce
      instruction cache miss penalties.

Together, these innovations provide greater than 20 percent increase in performance for a host of real-world audio applications. For example, MP3 decoding now requires only 16 MHz on a C672x DSP, down from 20 MHz for the C6713 DSP, and 10-band equalizer decoding requires only 6 MHz on a C672x DSP, down from 17 MHz for the C6713 DSP. The C672x devices range in clock speed from 200 to 300 MHz with up to 256 KBytes of SRAM and 32 KBytes of instruction cache. The peripherals on the C672x were selected specifically with audio applications in mind. The subset of peripherals varies depending on the specific processor, but the C672x devices include up to three McASPs, two SPI, an HPI, an RTI, an EMIF, two I2C, a PLL and a dMAX engine.

"We developed our professional audio FireWire products around TI's C6713 because of its high level of floating point processing power and audio connectivity," said Milo Street, chief technology officer, Echo Digital Audio. "With the coming release of the C672x devices and their lower price points, we will be able to broaden our product line and continue to build on our investment in code developed for TI's processors and tools."

Fast Time to Market with Professional Audio Development Kit

TI is simultaneously announcing availability of a Professional Audio Development Kit (PADK) from Lyrtech Signal Processing. With the PADK, developers are able to quickly evaluate the C672x device performance and begin product development immediately without having to first develop their own prototype board, reducing product design time.

The PADK integrates the C6727 DSP with TI's complementary analog technology, including A/D and D/A converters from TI's Burr-Brown product line, and it is tuned for high-end pro-audio applications. Designed by Lyrtech, the PADK demonstrates the efficiency of the C672x DSP, with the inclusion of real-world pro-audio algorithms and software examples that demonstrate the core's performance and audio processing capabilities. An onboard expansion slot provides flexible I/O connectivity and enables developers to evaluate other analog components to achieve different product price points.

"With the architectural improvements of the C672x DSP core, TI has focused on increasing performance of real-world applications," said Gerard Andrews, worldwide audio DSP marketing manager, TI. "The combination of optimized silicon, production-ready software and comprehensive technical support will enable our customers to get to market quickly."

In addition to the PADK, TI offers DSP development tools designed in tandem with hardware to achieve a high level of raw performance using C. Code Composer Studio(TM) (TMDSCCSALL-1) includes TI's optimizing C compiler to eliminate the need for assembly code in most cases, creating an easier to maintain code base. For applications requiring mixed video and audio, such as video conferencing, developers save time and effort by being able to use the same development tools for both audio and video subsystems.

In addition to audio applications, the C672x devices are well-suited for a wide variety of applications that leverage floating-point technology, including biometrics, medical and industrial applications. The C67x(TM) floating-point DSP has been broadly accepted by the digital audio industry and appears in consumer electronics equipment. It is the core technology for the family of Aureus(TM) audio DSPs which do the multi-channel audio processing in A/V receivers, such as those from Harman/Kardon, JVC, Yamaha and Denon and multimedia/gaming systems. TI's Burr-Brown product line also offers an expanding portfolio of precision analog and mixed-signal IC solutions to meet the high-performance signal processing demands of the professional audio market.

Pricing and Availability

C672x devices are sampling immediately with production slated for 4Q05. The C6722 DSP at 200 MHz is priced at $9.95, the C6726 DSP at 250 MHz is priced at $14.10 and the C6727 DSP at 300 MHz is $19.95, all in production volumes. The PADK is also available now from Lyrtech at a cost of $1995, and it will be available from TI in 3Q05.

Product Endorsements for the C672x DSPs and the PADK

"We have a long history of supporting DSP engineers through the development cycle and helping them ramp into production. With release of TI's new C672x devices, our PADK will give developers the foundation they need to quickly evaluate this new silicon and began product development, without having to first build a prototype board."

Louis Chouinard, chief technology officer, Lyrtech, Signal Processing

"TI's C672x gives us an excellent upgrade path in our radio broadcast audio peripherals. The greater than 20 percent performance increase allows us to encode, decode, mix and apply audio effects to a greater number of streams simultaneously. In the future, as new algorithms and multi-channel audio are introduced into radio, this new DSP will give us the performance we need to handle them cost effectively."

Stephen Turner, Vice President and Co-Founder, AudioScience

"With the growth of the prosumer audio market, we are constantly trying to increase the feature sets available on our synthesizers. The increased performance capabilities of the C672x at the reduced price will enable us to offer additional features on the next generation of our synthesizers without raising the price for our end users."

Alan Meyer, director of engineering, Alesis, LLC

"At D&R, our goal is to offer the highest digital audio quality mixers available on the market. With the C672x, we plan to take advantage of the new dMax engine and mixed-precision instructions to offer increased performance in our mixers."

     Jan Betten, chief engineer of research and development, D&R Electronica

  About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers' real-world signal processing requirements. In addition to Semiconductors, the company's businesses include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries.

Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at http://www.ti.com/ .

Statements contained in this press release regarding the growth of the audio products, musical instruments, biometrics, medical and machine vision markets and the digital audio and consumer electronics industries, TI market penetration and qualification of TI products and other statements of management's beliefs, goals and expectations may be considered forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. The following factors and the factors discussed in TI's most recent Form 10-K could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements contained in this press release: actual market demand for audio and consumer electronics products, musical instruments, and biometrics, medical, and machine vision devices in general and TI semiconductor products specifically, and actual certification test results relating to TI products. TI disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release.

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TMS320C67x(TM), C67x(TM) and Aureus(TM) are trademarks of Texas Instruments. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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