Texas Instruments has put on a technology demonstration of a 1GHz digital signal processor (DSPs). TI is scheduled to sample the 1GHz DSP in the first half of 2004 using 90nm process technology.

Researchers at the University of Southern California are developing artificial vision that will tap the performance of a 1GHz DSP to enable vision-impaired people to improve their visibility from 16pixels to 1,000pixels. This translates into seeing only the difference between day and night versus being able to recognize movement and see large objects.

TI says that in the home, 1GHz performance will lead to the development of products such as a media center for viewing of high-definition TV on a variety of entertainment and productivity devices, including TVs, PCs and PDAs, with no wires, while simultaneously recording high-definition content for later viewing.

Published in Embedded Systems Europe June 2003