The Texas Instruments DaVinci is a family of system on a chip processors that are primarily used in embedded video and vision applications. Many processors in the family combine a DSP core based on the TMS320 C6000 VLIW DSP family and an ARM CPU core into a single system on chip. By using both a general-purpose processor and a DSP, the control and media portions can both be executed by separate processors.
Later chips in the family included DSP-only and ARM-only processors. All the later chips integrate several accelerators to offload commodity application-specific processing from the processor cores to dedicated accelerators. Most notable among these are HDVICP, an H.264, SVC and MPEG-4 compression and decompression engine, ISP, an accelerator engine with methods for enhancing video primarily input from camera sensors and an OSD engine for display acceleration. Some of the newest processors also integrate a vision coprocessor in the SoC.
History
DaVinci processors were introduced at a time when embedded processors with homogeneous processor cores were widely used. These processors were based either on cores that could do signal processing optimally, like DSPs or GPUs or based on cores that could do general-purpose processing optimally, like PowerPC, ARM, and StrongARM. By using both a general-purpose processor and a DSP on a single chip, the control and media portions can both be executed by processors that excel at their respective tasks. By providing a bundled offering with system and application software, evaluation modules and debug tools based on Code Composer Studio, TI DaVinci processors were intended to win over a broader set of customers looking to add video features to their electronic products.
TI announced its first DaVinci branded video processors, the DM6443 and DM6446, on 5 December 2005.EDN: TI Unveils DaVinci Development Kit for Video, DSPs Embedded.com: Single-chip systems make digital video easyBDTI: TI Launches First "DaVinci" Video ProcessorsEETimes: December Newsletter: TI Launches First "DaVinci" Video Processors A year later, TI followed up with DSP only versions of the chips in the family, called DM643x (DM6431, DM6433, DM6435, DM6437).EDN: Digital video processor breaks $10Texas Instruments Announces DaVinci Family Extensions On January 15, 2007, TI announced DM6441 that is pin-pin compatible with DM6446, but a lower end version With increased investment and significant focus on the DaVinci product line, following products were announced: May 21, 2007 — TMS320DM648 — Processor offering $40 reduction in BOM for security applicationsTexas Instruments DaVinci(TM) Technology Doubles System Performance with a $40 System BOM Reduction for Video Security and Surveillance Applications Sep 4, 2007 — TMS320DM355 — Sub $10 ARM+co-processor chip for MPEG-4 encode/decode Dec 30, 2007 — TMS320DM6467 — 10x performance improvement over DM6446 Jul 18, 2008 — TMS320DM335 — ISP only version of DM355Design costs for portable display electronics drop with TI's lowest cost digital media processor Nov 18, 2008 — TMS320DM357 — Low cost realtime D1 H.264 video encode March 3, 2009 — TMS320DM365 — Sub $10 ARM+co-processor chip for 720p30 and 1080p H.264 encode/decodeNew TMS320DM365 processor from Texas Instruments provides pixel-perfect 1080p H.264 video flexibility without the design complexity March 18, 2010 — TMS320DM8168 — 36x channels of realtime D-1 H.264 encode/decode or 6x channels of realtime HD H.264 encode/decode April 14, 2010 — TMS320DM368 — Pin-pin compatible processor with DM365 that can do 1080p30 H.264 encode/decode May 10, 2010 — DMVA2 — Pin-pin compatible processor with DM365 and DM368 that can do analytics in addition to H.264 compressionTexas Instruments launches DaVinci DMVA2 video processor, the first megapixel IP camera SoC with smart analytics Mar 1, 2011 — TMS320DM8148 — 12x channels of D-1 H.264 encode performance with DSP for analytics Dec 3, 2012 — DM385 and DM8107 — ARM+co-processor chips that does 1080p60 encode/decode and high quality image processing. DM8107 was for multi-channel DVR/NVR marketNew TI DaVinci video processors bring "true-to-life" image quality and unparalleled performance in low-light surveillance conditions Apr 10, 2013 — DM369 — ARM+co-processor chip pin-pin compatible with DM365, DM365 and DMVA2, with enhanced low-light performanceTI delivers best-in-class low-light technology for megapixel IP camera market with new DaVinci DM369 video SoC Oct 29, 2013 — DM388, DMVA3, DM383 — ARM+co-processor chip pin-pin compatible with DM385, adding enhanced video quality and analyticsRevitalizing the next-generation of cameras, TI delivers best-in-class integrated Image Signal Processing (ISP) technology in new DaVinci video processors
Today, DaVinci processors are used in various video and vision applications, including IP Security cameras, DVR/NVR systems, car blackboxes (car dvr or cab cam), drones, and so on.
Processors Many of these model numbers should, formally, be prefixed by TMS320; the prefix is usually omitted for brevity. For example, the full part number for the DM6446 begins with TMS320DM6446 and has a suffix indicating its packaging type (a BGA flavor) and temperature rating. Processor Release date ARM DSP Co-processor Camera application Multichannel DVR/NVR application DM6446 Dec 5, 2005 ARM9 C64x+ DSP ISP, OSD, VENC Yes DM6437 Nov 14, 2006 ARM9 C64x+ DSP ISP, OSD, VENC Yes DM6441 Jan 15, 2007 ARM9 C64x+ DSP ISP, OSD, VENC DM648 May 21, 2007 C64x+ DSP Yes DM355 Sep 4, 2007 ARM9 ISP, VICP, MJCP, OSD, VENC Yes DM6467 Dec 30, 2007 ARM9 C64x+ DSP Yes DM335 Jul 18, 2008 ARM9 ISP Yes DM357 Nov 18, 2008 ARM9 ISP Yes DM365 Mar 3, 2009 ARM9 ISP, HDVICP1, OSD, VENC Yes DM8168 Mar 18, 2010 A8 C64x+ DSP ISP, HDVICP2, HDVPSS Yes DM368 Apr 14, 2010 ARM9 ISP, HDVICP1, OSD, VENC Yes DMVA2 May 10, 2010 ARM9 ISP, HDVICP1, OSD, VENC, VCOP Yes DM8148 Mar 1, 2011 A8 C64x+ DSP ISP, HDVICP2, HDVPSS, NF Engine, VCOP Yes Yes DM8127 Mar 1, 2011 A8 C64x+ DSP ISP, HDVICP2, HDVPSS, NF Engine, VCOP Yes DM385 Dec 3, 2012 A8 ISP, HDVICP2, HDVPSS Yes DM8107 Dec 3, 2012 A8 ISP, HDVICP2, HDVPSS Yes DM369 Apr 10, 2013 ARM9 ISP, HDVICP1, OSD, VENC, NF Engine Yes DM388 Oct 29, 2013 A8 ISP, HDVICP2, HDVPSS Yes DMVA3 Oct 29, 2013 A8 ISP, HDVICP2, HDVPSS, VCOP Yes
Peripherals The DaVinci processor families include a number of on-chip peripherals. Depending on the particular device, these may include: CCD Controller for digital camera/camcorder applications BT.656 and MIPI CSI-2 video/camera input interface Support for memory cards such as CompactFlash, SD card and MMC ATA interface Connectivity, including USB 2.0 Host and Client modes, VLYNQ (interface for FPGA, Wireless LAN, PCI), EMAC (Ethernet MAC) with MDIO GPIO Enhanced DMA Interrupt controller Digital LCD controller Serial interfaces, including SPI, I²C, and I²S, UART Histogram, autofocus, autoexposure, and auto-white-balance (H3A) acceleration Image resize acceleration A/D and D/A converters for analog video input and output
Libraries Most of the TMS320 DSPs include a TMS320 Chip Support Library (CSL), which is an API used to control the peripherals. However, since the philosophy for the DaVinci was to allow the ARM/Linux side to control the peripherals via Linux drivers, support for the CSL on the DM644x (dual-core ARM/DSP) is not currently available for the DSP.
Operating systems
The DSP included in many DaVinci-based devices generally runs TI's TI-RTOS Kernel real-time operating system. When multiple, heterogeneous cores are included in the device (e.g. DM644x), DSP/BIOS Link drivers run on both the ARM processor and the DSP to provide communication between the two.
A number of operating systems for the DaVinci ARM and support DaVinci and the DSP/BIOS Link drivers: FreeBSD Linux kernel Mentor Graphics Nucleus PLUS RTOS Green Hills Software INTEGRITY RTOS QNX Neutrino Windows CE LEOs (RTOS)
See also Texas Instruments OMAP Canon DIGIC Processors DVPB-HD
References
External links DaVinci Home Page DaVinci Developers Wiki (hosted by TI) Linux DaVinci information catalog Texas Instruments IPCamera Reference Designs based on DaVinci processors Texas Instruments DVR/NVR Reference Designs based on DaVinci processors Texas Instruments Car black box Reference Designs based on DaVinci processors