CEVA-XC323 DSP Core for Advanced Wireless Terminal, Infrastructure and DTV Demodulation Applications

The CEVA-XC323 architecture

The CEVA-XC family of DSP cores features a combination of VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) and Vector engines that enhance typical DSP capabilities with advanced vector processing. Based on the architecture of the CEVA-X DSP family, the CEVA-XC family of DSP cores incorporates up to four modular Vector Communication Units into the CEVA-X framework. The scalable CEVA-XC architecture offers a selection of highly powerful communication processors targeting the most demanding wireless applications and use cases, enabling software-defined modem design with minimal hardware. With its innovative programmable approach, the CEVA-XC family offers high flexibility that supports a large number of wireless standards on a single programmable platform, thereby significantly reducing development cost and time to market.

The second generation of the CEVA-XC family, the CEVA-XC323, is a highly powerful processor that is optimized for wireless terminal and infrastructure applications and that has been widely adopted by multiple Terminal and Infrastructure vendors. The CEVA-XC323 offers highly powerful vector capabilities alongside a powerful general computation engine supplying the performance and flexibility demanded by next generation communication applications.

Target applications for the CEVA-XC323

Wireless Terminals

• Handsets, Smartphones, Tablets, data cards, etc.
• Addressing: LTE, LTE-A, WiMAX, HSPA/+, and legacy 2G/3G standards

Wireless Infrastructure

• A scalable solution for femtocells up to macrocells

Universal DTV Demodulator

• A programmable solution targeting digital TV demodulation in software
• Target standards: DVB-T, DVB-T2, ISDB-T, ATSC, DTMB, etc.

Wireless connectivity

• A single platform for: Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, GPS, Bluetooth and more

SmartGrid

• A single platform for: wireless PAN (802.11, 802.15.4, etc.), PLC (Power Line Communication), and Cellular communication (LTE, W-CMDA, etc.)

Highlights

The CEVA-XC323 offers a wealth of architectural features as follows:

Fully programmable DSP

• Two vector processing units – each unit operates on 256-bit vector registers offering a powerful 512-bit SIMD engine
• Up to 8 simultaneous instructions (8-Way VLIW)
• Efficient DSP support for non-vectorized data
• Efficient support for control and ANSI-C operations

Extremely powerful computation capabilities

• 32 16×16-bit MAC operations and/or 64 16×8-bit MAC operations
• 64 arithmetic operations per cycle
• 32 logic operations per cycle
• 200 16-bit operations in a cycle

Scalable and configurable architecture for use in a wide range of wireless applications and devices through different configurations and optional modules

• Scalable computation capabilities and memories
• Configurable utilization of optional instruction sets

Uniquely designed for wireless baseband

• High flexibility SIMD programming model with intra-vector permutation capabilities
• Optimized instruction set for wireless modems, including matrix processing, MIMO detectors, filtering, complex data permutations, and bit stream processing

Efficient flow of the entire baseband application

• Communication operations – Vector communication units deal with vectorizable data
• General DSP operations – Complete support for general ANSI-C DSP functions, adaptive parameters, etc.
• Control code – Fully interruptible, conditional ISA, branch prediction, delay slots, etc.
• Memory accesses – Dual flexible data addressing units with dedicated scalar unit

Complete memory subsystem

• Includes tightly coupled memories (TCM), caches, AXI system interfaces, APB3 interface, advanced DMA controller, emulation and profiling modules.
• Ensures easy integration and optimal performance in Target SoCs

Offers a homogeneous multi-core system design capability including:

• Wide AXI busses for massive data transfers
• Snooping mechanism to detect external device accesses
• Message queues allowing synchronization and easy system control;
• Exclusive access allowing atomic access to external memories,
• External debug interfaces allowing cross-triggering.

Integrates an innovative Power Scaling Unit (PSU) offering significant energy savings for both battery-operated and stationary devices:

• Advanced power management for both dynamic and leakage power.
• Multiple voltage domains associated with the functional units.
• Multiple operational modes ranging from full operation, to debug bypass, to memory retention, to complete power shut-off (PSO).

Communication Software

CEVA-XC Communication Libraries

CEVA offers a complete set of DSP and communication libraries optimized for CEVA-XC323 to ease the implementation of software-based wireless modems. CEVA’s unique multimode software-defined modem library offering significantly simplifies customer development of multimode modems.

Highlights of the CEVA-XC libraries include:

• Covers the most critical algorithms and addresses the entire transceiver chain
• LTE FDD, LTE TDD, HSPA+, and WiMAX are available; additional libraries are in development
• C-callable optimized DSP code ensuring optimal DSP performance
• Minimizes required architecture know-how and enables designers to focus on system code and proprietary algorithms
• A generic implementation that can be configured to address the customer’s unique use cases

• System-independent code ensures smooth integration into the customer SoC

CEVA-XCnet Partner Program

 

The?CEVA-XCnet Partnership Program?is a comprehensive network of strategic third-party technology suppliers that brings together a variety of critical and complementary technologies: communication software and hardware IPs for 3G and 4G applications, DSP software design services, real-time operating systems (RTOS), SoC level prototyping, and simulation tools. CEVA-XCnet members gain in-depth understanding of the CEVA-XC architecture, development environment and libraries, and have a direct link to CEVA’s internal R&D resources. Consequently, CEVA-XCnet reduces development costs and risks for CEVA-XC licensees, and significantly accelerates the development of advanced wireless communications solutions.

LTE Ref. Architectures

CEVA-XC based multi-mode LTE reference architectures

 

Based on the CEVA-XC323 processor, CEVA offers complete multimode reference architectures targeting both wireless terminals and wireless infrastructure.?These reference architectures leverage on years of accumulated knowledge with CEVA’s Tier-1 baseband licensees, are based on CEVA-XC optimized communication Libraries and ?address the entire PHY layer requirements.

Reference architectures highlights:

• A complete LTE PHY system architecture addressing the entire PHY layer requirements of multiple standards in software including: LTE FDD, LTE TDD, and HSPA+
• Built around CEVA-XC323 processor with minimal complementary hardware accelerators
• Software upgradable to other baseband standards with clear roadmap for standards evolution
• Offers industry’s most competitive SDR platform in terms of both cost and power consumption
• Ensures system completeness and fast time to market for CEVA-XC based modem design
• Takes into consideration MAC and RF interfaces, simplifying integration into customer SoC

DTV Ref. Architecture

CEVA-XC based multi-mode DTV reference architecture

 

Based on the CEVA-XC323 processor, CEVA offers a multi-standard DTV demodulation reference architecture. Together with?Idea! Electronic Systems, a member of the CEVA-XCnet partner program,?the companies have developed a complete, ISDB-T solution based on a multi-standard reference architecture, including ISDB-T software library functions, ISDB-T PHY software IP, a universal front-end engine and FEC accelerators.

Leveraging the fully programmable CEVA-XC DSP, every existing and future DTV demodulation standard can be supported in software rather than hardware, significantly reducing the die size, design complexity and cost of multi-standard DTV demodulation solutions. In addition, the CEVA-XC processor can support any other air interface to further differentiate the product, including LTE, HSPA+ and WiFi.

CEVA-XC323 Software Development Kit (SDK)

CEVA-XC323 silicon-based SDK

CEVA now offers a new silicon-based, software development kit (SDK) for runtime software development based on the CEVA-XC323 DSP. The CEVA-XC323 silicon embedded in the SDK was designed by CEVA and manufactured on a 65nm process, delivering up to 800MHz performance. This level of performance facilitates the design of software-based modems and associated application software, for multiple communication standards, in parallel and in a real-time environment.

The SDK is comprised of:

• CEVA-XC323 silicon, including CEVA’s innovative Power Scaling Unit (PSU) which enables advanced power management within the SoC.
• Two XC-DMA controllers
• Program cache
• 512 KB L1 data and 1MB shared L2 memory
• External 64/128-bit AXI master and slave interfaces
• 32-bit master APB interface
• Mltiple efficient master/slave memory interfaces
• Power Management Unit (PMU)
• Timers
• Interrupt Control Unit (ICU)
• 6.5Gbps optical transceiver
• Dual port 1Gbps Ethernet
• 1GB of DDR2 memories
• 64MB SSRAM memories
• HDMI in/out ports
• Dual Serial Rapid IO transceivers
• Multiple large FPGA modules open for user programmability to add SoC specific logic
• Comprehensive set of optimized DSP software libraries.

The SDK also includes a broad range of standard interfaces, enabling easy integration into customer-specific system designs, and a complete debug, profiling and tracing capabilities in real-time, to enable the modeling of real system conditions well in advance of customer silicon being available. The development kit is supported by?CEVA-Toolbox?, a complete software development, debug, and optimization environment.