Texas Instruments claims industry’s lowest power DSPs, now running at 150 MHz performance

The C5504 and C5505 processors offer the industry’s lowest total power at less than 0.15 mW/MHz and standby power at less than 0.15 mW. The processors feature up to 320 KB of on-chip memory and multiple integrated peripherals that reduce system cost by more than 20 percent compared to earlier C55x processors. Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling can be used to maximize the battery life for different operating conditions, allowing up to 40 percent additional battery life compared to earlier C55x processors.

The C5504 DSP provides a low-cost solution with the right combination of performance and standby and active power levels for emerging portable applications that require up to 256 kB on-chip memory, such as portable voice recorders and MP3 players. The C5505 DSP builds on the C5504 by adding an additional 64 kB on-chip memory, an integrated display controller and fast Fourier transform (FFT) hardware acceleration for end equipments such as noise-cancellation headphones, musical instruments, medical monitoring, biometrics and seismic sensors.

Both devices are pin-to-pin and software compatible, offering the same energy efficiency and performance with a different peripheral set. This allows system designers to develop one platform that bridges different price markets by migrating between processors.