Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing has announced an updated version of its DSP function library, Continuum Vector that is suitable for use with Intel's second generation Core i7 processors. Designed for use in aerospace and defense signal processing applications such as radar, sonar, and signal intelligence, the DSP function library provides a rich set of signal processing subroutine building blocks. It speeds the development of embedded signal processing systems and eases the migration of hundreds of legacy platforms based on AltiVec-based DSP libraries to Intel processor-based designs, claims the company.
The library enables easy access to the power of the Intel's 256bit floating point AVX (advanced vector extensions) instructions. With its 256bit registers, AVX instructions support twice as many floating point elements as previous streaming single instruction, multiple data extensions implementation, enhancing performance, claims the company. Many DSP algorithms can take advantage of these wide instructions. For example, commonly employed fast fourier transform functions show up to 1.8x performance when used with AVX, according to the company.
The library features over 140 commonly used DSP functions, and supports native operation on Intel-based desktop computers running Linux. It helps to generate algorithms on a desktop PC environment before target hardware becomes available, to reduce development time. The library supports the vector signal image processing library interface and application programming interface. It enables algorithm to work with high-level signal-processing functions. It is supported on all of the company's Intel processor-based SBCs and signal processing engines, including the CHAMP-AV8, VPX6-1956 and VPX3-1256.
