Introduction; Design Advantages - Analog Devices ADSP-21261 SHARC Hardware Reference Manual

1 INTRODUCTION

A digital signal processor's data format determines its ability to handle sig-
nals of differing precision, dynamic range, and signal-to-noise ratios.
Because floating-point DSP math reduces the need for scaling and proba-
bility of overflow, using a floating-point DSP can ease algorithm and
software development. The extent to which this is true depends on the
floating-point processor's architecture. Consistency with IEEE worksta-
tion simulations and the elimination of scaling are clearly two ease-of-use
advantages. High-level language programmability, large address spaces,
and wide dynamic range allow system development time to be spent on
algorithms and signal processing concerns, rather than assembly language
coding, code paging, and error handling. The ADSP-2126xprocessors are
highly integrated, lower cost 32-bit floating-point DSPs which provide
many of these design advantages.
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For brevity, the ADSP-21262, ADSP-21266 and ADSP-21267
SHARC processors will be referred to as the ADAP-2126x. For
instances where functionality applies to one or the other processor
specifically, it will be noted in the text.

Design Advantages

The ADSP-2126x is a high-performance 32-bit processor used for medical
imaging, communications, military, audio, test equipment, 3D graphics,
speech recognition, motor control, imaging, and other applications. By
adding a dual-ported on-chip SRAM, integrated I/O peripherals, and an
additional processing element for Single-Instruction Multiple-Data
ADSP-2126x SHARC Processor Hardware Reference 1-1