Texas Instruments power optimisation DSP starter kit delivers power monitoring based on NI Labview software and USB hardware, promising a tenfold improvement in efficiency over traditional methods
National Instruments has announced its collaboration with Texas Instruments and Spectrum Digital in the development of the new TI C55X Power Optimisation DSP Starter Kit (DSK), the industry's first DSP design tool to offer designers incorporated test and measurement functionality.
The new kit incorporates virtual instrumentation - combining National Instruments USB-based measurement hardware with a power monitoring application based on NI Labview software - to deliver a complete set of power estimation and measurement tools for accurately planning, analysing, managing and optimising real-time power consumption.
It offers a ten times increase in efficiency over traditional methods for power monitoring, which entail purchasing a DSP and expensive power monitoring hardware separately.
"By incorporating National Instruments measurement capabilities into this DSK, we offer our customers a significant value-add over other DSP development tools on the market," said John Dixon, Texas Instruments Low-Power DSP marketing manager.
"In addition to saving weeks to months in the development cycles, the DSK offers visibility into power consumption that helps OEMs achieve greater power efficiency than ever before, giving their products a clear competitive edge over less efficient designs".
Because the new TI C55X Power Optimisation DSK includes built-in NI software and hardware, designers now can more easily monitor power at various stages in the DSP chip operation.
Understanding a design's power consumption is not only especially important for engineers developing battery-powered devices - such as digital music players, portable medical equipment and other devices with limited power - but is also significant for optimising energy efficiency in AC-powered designs.
In addition to built-in power monitoring hardware and ready-to-run monitoring software, the TI C55X Power Optimisation DSK includes power scaling libraries as part of the TI Code Composer Studio and a daughtercard interface for features such as screen and fingerprint ID.
Designers can also set triggers in the TI Code Composer Studio that can be read by the Power Monitor application based on Labview to analyse power consumption during a specific code segment.
The DSK is built on a robust C5509A-based target board complete with onboard emulation and board support libraries from Spectrum Digital.
It also provides expansion connectors for custom user logic along with audio input and outputs via an TLV320AIC23B codec.
"National Instruments is excited to provide embedded developers a comprehensive solution for monitoring power consumption on their designs at a great value," said Kristi Hobbs, NI data acquisition product manager.
"This combined prototyping and test tool is a first for the industry and raises the bar for future embedded tools".
NI offers additional software and hardware options for designers needing more advanced power-monitoring capabilities with increased accuracy or varied analysis capabilities, including high-performance digital multimeters (DMMs) or cost-effective, modular NI SCC signal conditioning systems that engineers can combine with NI PC-based data acquisition devices.
NI also offers powerful software for power monitoring such as VI Logger data-logging software and SignalExpress interactive measurement software.
