On: Inside the Steam Deck's APU

[jsnell]

The original source[0] speculates they're computer vision DSPs, specifically Tensilica Vision DSPs from Cadence.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERm1StY-4uY

[jsheard → jsnell]

It wouldn't be the first time AMD has bundled some Cadence DSP cores into their designs, they used them for TrueAudio back in the day as well.

[dfox → jsheard]

Intel also integrates Tensillica cores as sound DSP (IIRC into PCH not CPU itself). And NXP has some kind of i.MX part that somewhat closely couples Tensillica DSP core(s) to ARM SoC. So I would say that today probably everybody except TI uses Cadence/Tensillica DSP cores.

[kjs3 → dfox]

I don't think Analog Devices uses Tensillica, and I think NXP still has things in the 56300 derived line shipping, but Tensillica does seem to have soaked up the lions share of DSP functionality these days.

[dfox → kjs3]

I meant as an DSP core inside some larger chip, not as free standing DSP. It does not make much sense to design a chip that just contains a Tensillica core and nothing else because you lose all of the customizability and the market for such a thing probably is not big enough to offset the NRE and licensing costs (obviously, with Espressif stuff being the exception, but the RF part in there is pretty significant part of the design).

[kjs3 → dfox]

That's a fair clarification. The 56000 had a tiny number of SoC-like build-ins (with a 68000), but I don't think they've been sold in decades.