Tim Compatible Parallel Processing With the TMS320C6X Family.
Leo McManus, Mark Cartlidge, Graeme Parker, Flemming Christensen · 1999
Sundance Multiprocessor Technology has produced two compatible TMS320C4x Texas Instruments Modules, TIM’s, incorporating the TMS320C6x DSP. This gives the C6x a seamless parallel processing capability compatible with the TMS320C4x family of processors. The paper discusses communication port speeds and channel I/O methods and mixed family processing techniques and code distribution. 1. TMS320C6x Processor The C6201 is a 200MHz fixed point RISC processor and the C6701 is a 167MHz floating point RISC processor. With eight functional units, including two multipliers and six arithmetic logic units the CPU can execute up to eight instructions per cycle. All instructions are conditional so reducing time for branching. The memory maybe accessed via 8, 16 or 32bit wide instructions for efficient memory support, with 40-bit arithmetic options. Saturation and normalisation allow safer integer arithmetic operations on the C6201 with the C6701 supporting single cycle floating point multiplication. The device includes 65KBytes of internal memory, four channels for direct memory access, two serial ports, a host-port interface (HPI) and two 32-bit timers. 2. TIM-40 Specification Several United Kingdom customers of the Texas Instruments TMS320C4x, required a cost effective parallel processing module to improve system designs. In collaboration with Texas Instruments they defined the TIM-40 module specification [1]. Specifically targeted at the C40, with its six communication ports, enabling Figure 2 Single Sized 80MBs ADC TIM with 200MBs Sundance Data Bus Connectors Figure 1 TIM Mother Board Populated with 4 C6x SMT331 TIM’s Figure 3 Re-configurable FPGA TIM with SDB hypercube multiprocessing [2][3][4], the specification does not exclude the use of other processors. Special-to-type modules, such as ADC's, (figure 2), DAC’s, SCSI controllers, re-configurable FPGA’s, (figure 3), image processing frame grabbers, from being implemented. Restrictions come in the form of pinouts, power limits or mechanical properties. The module is intended to be reusable on different architectures, to be plugged into motherboards to build homogeneous systems. TIM modules maybe double, triple or quadruple width dependent upon the backplane. The TIM modules are provided with a support environment in the form of motherboards. The motherboards provide the environment for the modules to operate and communicate with others and the host machine. Larger systems maybe built by utilising multiple motherboards. The motherboards are available for a variety of backplanes, (PC-ISA, VME, PCI, CompactPCI, VXI, PMC). There are no restrictions on the backplane, only on the module sites. The result is, users investments are in the processing and special-to-type modules which make the system. The TIM specification allows for an ID ROM to be installed. This allows software to determine the location of resources or the type of hardware it is running on and information on the manufacturer. Building modules, which are TIM compliant, allows systems to be rapidly configured using combinations of TIM’s and motherboards. This eliminates hardware development or prototyping boards for many applications.