ROBOT.LK

Hi,
What is the difference between fixed point and floating point DSP.
Thanks

A fixed point DSP comes with one or more fixed point ALUs. All floating point calculations are re-arranged by compiler to work in fixed point ALU(s) which is considered very inefficient.

A floating point processor usually has two or more ALUs including one or few floating point ones. Executing floating-point calculations are extremely fast when compared to Fixed point processors.

Fixed point processor -> Software floating-point operations
Floating-point processor -> Hardware floating-point operations

See C6713 (Floating-point DSP) has following functional units.
Eight Independent Functional Units:

• Two ALUs (Fixed-Point)
• Four ALUs (Floating- and Fixed-Point)
• Two Multipliers (Floating- and Fixed-Point)

See C6413 (Fixed-point DSP) has following functional units.
Eight Highly Independent Functional Units With VelociTI.2™ Extensions:

• Six ALUs (32-/40-Bit), Each Supports Single 32-Bit, Dual 16-Bit, or Quad 8-Bit Arithmetic per Clock Cycle
• Two Multipliers Support Four 16 x 16-Bit Multiplies (32-Bit Results) per Clock Cycle or Eight 8 x 8-Bit Multiplies (16-Bit Results) per Clock Cycle

Thanks a lot Neo.