The design and implementation of a 16-bit, low-power, high performance, microprocessor based digital signal processing unit
Michael D. Gaches · K-State Research Exchange (Kansas State University) · 1987
State was a CMOS on sapphire substrate process which yielded a high speed device with low power consumption.The problem with this implementation was its extreme cost, making its use in a high volume product unreasonable.Rockwell has tried to remedy this problem by introducing the AAMP in a new Bulk CMOS process package.This change is expected to reduce the AAMP's cost by a factor of about 10.Along with the production process change, several internal architectural changes have been made which alter the processor's operation.This improved version of the AAMP processor was used in the design of the system discussed in this thesis, but due to production delays the original version of the processor was used in the actual construction of the processing unit.Sandia provided a set of general system specifications as well as a complete schematic of the 8086 system currently being used.Desired improvements were outlined but the new system's input/ output specifications and softwareorganization was to remain as close to those of the existing system as possible.In addition to the system described in this report, Sandia asked for a "stripped down" version of the system which reguired a reduced amount of memory and I/O hardware.This system was to reduce power consumption to an absolute minimum while mantaining the processor's high speed.Because this stripped down system is essentially the same as the one dealt with in this report its discussion will be left to an appendix.System goals and specifications are detailed as follows:1.Minimize power consumption to meet the requirement of battery operation over long periods of time.2.Minimize chip count to meet restrictions placed on board size.3.Maximize processor throughput to meet a sampling requirement of two channels of data, each at 128 samples per second. 4.System should be able to run standard signal processing algorithms in either fixed or floating point implementations which reside in ROM.5.If possible, the system's input/ output and memory map should be identical to the existing 8086 based system to minimize software changes and to ease system testing.