Motorola 56000

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Motorola 56000

The Motorola DSP56000 (aka 56K) is a family of DSP

Digital signal processor

A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor designed specifically for digital signal processing, generally in real-time computing....
chips produced by Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. is an United States, multinational, Fortune 100, telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It is a manufacturer of wireless telephone handsets, also designing and selling wireless network infrastructure equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers....
Semiconductor (now known as Freescale Semiconductor

Freescale Semiconductor

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004....
) starting in the 1980s and is still being produced in more advanced models in the 2000s. The 56k series was quite popular for a time in a number of computers, including the NeXT

NeXT Computer

The NeXT Computer was a high-end workstation developed, manufactured and sold by Steve Jobs' company NeXT from 1988 until 1990. It ran the Unix-based NeXTSTEP operating system....
, Atari Falcon

Atari Falcon

HistoryThe Atari Falcon was Atari Corporation's final computer product, more specifically named the Atari Falcon030 Computer System....
, and SGI Indigo

SGI Indigo

The Indigo, introduced as the IRIS Indigo, was a line of workstation computers developed and manufactured by Silicon Graphics . The first Indigo, code-named "Hollywood", was introduced on 22 July 1991....
workstations. Upgraded 56k versions are still used in audio

Sound

Sound is vibration transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a threshold of hearing to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations....
gear, radar

Radar

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic radiation waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain....
s, communications devices (like mobile phone

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a long-range, electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites....
s) and various other embedded

Embedded system

An embedded system is a special-purpose computer system designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, often with real-time computing constraints....
DSP applications.

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Encyclopedia

The Motorola DSP56000 (aka 56K) is a family of DSP

Digital signal processor

A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor designed specifically for digital signal processing, generally in real-time computing....
chips produced by Motorola

Motorola

Freescale Semiconductor

NeXT Computer

The NeXT Computer was a high-end workstation developed, manufactured and sold by Steve Jobs' company NeXT from 1988 until 1990. It ran the Unix-based NeXTSTEP operating system....
, Atari Falcon

Atari Falcon

HistoryThe Atari Falcon was Atari Corporation's final computer product, more specifically named the Atari Falcon030 Computer System....
, and SGI Indigo

SGI Indigo

Sound

Radar

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a long-range, electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites....
s) and various other embedded

Embedded system

An embedded system is a special-purpose computer system designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, often with real-time computing constraints....
DSP applications. The 56000 was also used as the basis for the updated 96000

Motorola 96000

The Motorola 96XXX is a family of digital signal processor integrated circuits produced by Motorola. They are based on the earlier Motorola 56000 and remain software compatible with them, but have been updated to a full 32-bit floating point implementation....
, which was not commercially successful.

Technical description

The DSP56000 uses fixed-point arithmetic

Fixed-point arithmetic

In computing, a fixed-point number representation is a real data type for a number that has a fixed number of digits after the radix point . Fixed-point number representation can be compared to the more complicated floating point number representation....
, with 24-bit

Bit

A bit is a binary numeral system numerical digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1. Binary digits are a basic unit of information Computer data storage and transmission in digital computing and digital information theory....
program word

Word (computer science)

In computing, "word" is a term for the natural unit of data used by a particular computer design. A word is simply a fixed-sized group of bits that are handled together by the machine....
s and 24-bit data words. It includes two 24-bit registers

Processor register

In computer architecture, a processor register is a small amount of Computer storage available on the CPU whose contents can be accessed more quickly than storage available elsewhere....
, which can also be referred to as a single 48-bit register. It also includes two 56-bit accumulator

Accumulator (computing)

In a computer's central processing unit , an accumulator is a processor register in which intermediate arithmetic logic unit results are stored....
s, each with an 8-bit "extension" (aka headroom); otherwise, the accumulators are similar to the other 24/48-bit registers. Being a Harvard architecture

Harvard architecture

The Harvard architecture is a computer architecture with physically separate computer storage and signal pathways for instructions and data. The term originated from the Harvard Mark I relay-based computer, which stored instructions on punched tape and data in electro-mechanical counters ....
processor, the 56k has two separate memory spaces+buses

Computer bus

In computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem that transfers data between computer components inside a computer or between computers. Each bus defines its set of connectors to physically plug devices, cards or cables together....
(and on-chip memory banks in some of the models): a program memory space/bus and a data memory space/bus.

24 bits were selected as the basic word length because it gave the system a reasonable number range and precision for processing audio (sound), the 56000's main concern. 24 bits correspond to a large 144dB

Decibel

The decibel is a logarithmic units of measurement that expresses the magnitude of a physical quantity relative to a specified or implied reference level....
dynamic range

Dynamic range

Dynamic range is a term used frequently in numerous fields to describe the ratio between the smallest and largest possible values of a changeable quantity, such as in sound and light....
, sufficient in the 1980s when analog-to-digital converter

Analog-to-digital converter

An analog-to-digital converter is a device which converts continuous signal to Discrete signal digital numbers. The reverse operation is performed by a digital-to-analog converter ....
s (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converter

Digital-to-analog converter

In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter is a device for converting a digital code to an analog signal .An analog-to-digital converter performs the reverse operation....
s (DACs) rarely exceeded 20 bits. One example is ADSL

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line is a form of Digital subscriber line, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide....
applications, where filters typically require 20 bits of accuracy. The leftmost four bits are considered ample headroom for calculations.

Applications and Variants

In most designs the 56000 is dedicated to one single task, because digital signal processing using special hardware is mostly real-time and does not allow any interrupt

Interrupt

In computing, an interrupt is an asynchronous communication signal from hardware indicating the need for attention or a synchronous event in software indicating the need for a change in execution....
ion. For somewhat more mildly demanding tasks which are not time-critical, or more of a simple "if-then" type, designers normally use a separate CPU

Central processing unit

Microcontroller

A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit consisting of a relatively simple CPU combined with support functions such as a crystal oscillator, timers, watchdog, serial and analog I/O etc....
.

The addition of SIMD

SIMD

In computing, SIMD is a technique employed to achieve data level parallelism....
instructions to most desktop computer CPU

Central processing unit

A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage....
s have meant that dedicated DSP chips like the 56000 have partly retreated from some application fields, but they continue to be used widely in communications and other professional uses. To this end the 56800 series added a complete MCU which created a single-chip "DSPcontroller" solution, while the opposite occurred in the 68456—a 68000

Motorola 68000

The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit Complex instruction set computer microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor ....
with a 56000 on it.

A quite prevalent recent model of the 56000 is the 3rd generation 563xx family, which features several models with special applications hardware built-in, like PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect

The PCI Local Bus , or Conventional PCI, is a computer bus for attaching computer hardware in a computer. These devices can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard itself, called a planar device in the PCI specification or an expansion card that fits into a socket....
interface logic, CRC

Cyclic redundancy check

A cyclic redundancy check is a type of function that takes as input a data stream of any length, and produces as output a value of a certain space, commonly a 32-bit integer....
processors, or audio companders

Companding

In telecommunication, signal processing, and thermodynamics, companding is a method of mitigating the detrimental effects of a channel with limited dynamic range....
.

External links

freeware assembler
Assembly language

An assembly language is a low-level language for programming computers. It implements a symbolic representation of the numeric machine codes and other constants needed to program a particular CPU architecture....
for the 56000 architecture