Analog Devices recently introduced eight SHARC processors as part of a new, high-performance, power-efficient, real-time series that delivers peak performance greater than 24 GLOPS using two enhanced SHARC+ cores and advanced DSP accelerators (FFT, FIR, IIR). The ADSP-SC58x and ADSP-2158x series consume less than 2 W at high temperature, making them, according top the company, more than 5X more power efficient than previous SHARC products. Potential applications include automotive, consumer and professional audio, multi-axis motor control, and energy distribution systems.

The ADSP-SC58x products complement the SHARC+ cores and DSP accelerators by adding an ARM Cortex-A5 processor, with FPU and Neon DSP extensions to handle additional real-time processing tasks and manage peripherals used to interface to time-critical data in audio, industrial closed-loop control, and industrial sensing applications. These interfaces include Gigabit Ethernet (with AVB and IEEE-1588 support), USB High-Speed, mobile storage (including SD/SDIO), and PCI Express.

The ADSP-2158x family, without the ARM core, suits applications where a DSP co-processor is typically needed and includes the two SHARC+ cores and DSP accelerators with a peripheral set matched to the cores.

With software IP protection a growing industry security concern, ARM TrustZone security and an onboard crypto hardware accelerator is included. For applications where reliability is a critical requirement, memory parity and error-correction hardware provide higher data integrity.

The overall integration and low-power features offered by the new ADSP-SC58x and ADSP-2158x series deliver significant BOM and board area savings and provide lower design complexity and reduced time to market for today’s complex applications.

The processors are supported by ADI’s Crosscore Embedded Studio development tool suite, which provides an interactive, real-time development tools that help optimize their design and speed time to market. In addition, ADI and Micrium have collaborated to offer µC/OS-II and µC/OS-III real-time kernels on both SHARC+ and ARM Cortex-A5 cores. Analog Devices also provides a Linux add-in for CrossCore Embedded Studio. Development boards and emulators are available to expedite the design process.