Future wireless convergence platforms

As wireless platforms converge to multimedia systems, architectures must converge to support voice, data, and video applications. From a processor architecture perspective, support for signal processing (both audio and video), control code, and Java execution will be required in a convergent device. Traditionally, wireless communications systems have been implemented in hardware. Convergent devices must be able to roam seamlessly across multiple communications systems. To avoid excessive hardware costs, a Software Defined Radio (SDR) approach offers a programmable and dynamically reconfigurable method of reusing hardware to implement physical layer processing. In this paper, we discuss trends in wireless platforms which are inherently convergence platforms. We also present the Sandbridge state-of-the-art example platform that supports both communications and multimedia applications processing. The architecture efficiently executes Java, Digital Signal Processing (DSP), and control code. Architectural features that reduce power dissipation and enable real-time processing are described. All of the communications and multimedia processing is executed completely in software without specialized hardware support. The processor is programmed in C with supercomputer-class compiler support for automatic vectorization, multithreading, and DSP semantic analysis.