Starter Kit speeds development of DSCs

4th October 2007

ES Admin

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Texas Instruments seems to have made it easy for engineers to evaluate and develop software on its recently introduced floating-point TMS320F2833x digital signal controllers (DSCs) by introducing the F28335 eZdsp starter kit. Now sampling, the F28335 controller is the industry’s first floating-point DSC, supplying developers of industrial systems with the inherent floating-point advantages of performance and simplified software development over fixed-point devices.

In addition to these digital processing solutions, TI offers engineers a broad portfolio of complementary analog solutions for development of greener variable speed motor control, digital power supplies and intelligent sensing applications.

The F28335 eZdsp starter kit, produced by Spectrum Digital, Inc., a member of the TI DSP Third Party Network, is a stand-alone tool that provides developers a platform to easily develop software for the F2833x controllers. Only $495, this low-cost development platform provides all the hardware and software necessary for evaluation and software development, ultimately cutting design cycle time and associated costs.

The F28335 eZdsp comes complete with an F28335 target board, TI’s Code Composer Studio™ Integrated Development Environment (version 3.3), universal AC power adapter and USB cable. The target board features the 150MHz/300 MFLOPS F28335 DSC with 512KB flash and 68KB RAM, 128Kx16 off-chip SRAM.

Performance and Reduced Development Time Help Enable Greener Industrial Applications The simplified software development and performance boost common to floating-point processors offer better power efficiency for greener industrial applications. For example, the F2833x devices enable variable speed alternating current (AC) drives, which use one-eighth the energy compared to constant speed counterparts. The floating-point devices also enable clean energy through solar power inverters that more efficiently convert energy from photovoltaic (PV) panels.

The new F2833x floating-point controllers can increase performance by an average of 50 percent over TI’s previous leading digital signal controllers while operating at the same 150 MHz clock rate. Some algorithms, such as a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) used for complex calculations, will see a 200 percent improvement over an equivalent 32-bit fixed-point implementation.

Embedded software engineers typically prefer to design and prototype control systems in floating-point arithmetic, but final designs are usually implemented in fixed-point arithmetic. By removing the need to convert from floating point to fixed point, F2833x devices can save weeks or months of development time and eliminate the required modifications to scaling, saturation and adjustment of numerical resolution.

Complementary Analog Products for System Solutions For industrial applications, TI also provides customers with a broad range of complementary analog solutions including high-performance data converters (ADCs and DACs), amplifiers, interface, low-power RF and power management products.

Silicon and Tools Availability Developers can now order samples of the TMS320F28835 from TI or any TI authorized distributor. Samples of the F28335 are available in the 176-pin TQFP package and ready for delivery.