06/11/01

3DSP SKETCHPAD™ DEVELOPMENT KITS SPEED DEVELOPMENT OF SYSTEMS BASED ON FIXED POINT AND CONFIGURABLE DSP CORES

IRVINE, Calif., June 11, 2001 - 3DSP Corporation™, the leader in configurable digital signal processor (DSP) architectures, now offers a variety of Sketchpad™ development kits for their popular fixed point and configurable DSP processors, providing ideal emulation platforms for hardware and software design of systems based on this advanced IP.

Sketchpad 5D kits, based on a SP-5D™ ASIC, provide a real-time development environment for 3DSP's popular SP-5™ core. Sketchpad FPGA kits, based on reprogrammable FPGA processor implementations, offer near-real-time development environments for SP-3™, SP-5 and user-configurable SP-5flex™ cores, as well as fully configured system-on-chip (SoC) designs using these cores. Both versions are ready for plug-and-play with a Windows®-based PC through a standard Universal Serial Bus (USB) port, and are accompanied by a complete suite of development tools and software.

"Our new Sketchpad development kits help designers complete their DSP system hardware and software designs faster than ever before," said H. D. Boesch, vice president for marketing at 3DSP. "DSP system emulations run two orders of magnitude faster on Sketchpad development boards than they would on PC design systems. In addition, by providing a uniquely reprogrammable version, we can assist system designers not only in making rapid, iterative architectural evaluations of all our cores, but also to fully and accurately exercise systems based on these cores long before the availability of prototype silicon."

In addition to the FPGA or ASIC implementations of the 3DSP cores, Sketchpad development boards come with 2 MB of SRAM and up to 16 MB of flash memory, as well as a dedicated microcontroller subsystem with private memory and bus to control the USB port. Connectors with more than 300 pins are provided to add daughter cards containing other system components, and an I/O emulation option can be specified to enable development and debugging of all I/O routines for a system before a physical prototype is available. Accompanying control logic is provided to manage hardware updates and feature enhancements of the FPGA download.

All Sketchpad development kits come with a development board with appropriate processor, power supply and USB cables, and a complete set of 3DSP's Software Studio™ development tools. Software Studio includes a C compiler, assembler and linker, cycle accurate simulator, GUI-based debugger and library manager.

Prices for Sketchpad development kits start at $19,950. For proper operation, Sketchpad development boards require a Pentium® class PC (400 MHz or better) with at least 64MB of RAM, a USB port, CD-ROM, and Windows 2000® operating system.

About 3DSP

3DSP is a leader in implementing advanced digital signal processing solutions in silicon for embedded systems. The company offers the industry's only fully configurable DSP architecture, backed by a robust environment and application-based intellectual property to speed complex system-on-chip (SoC) implementations to silicon with first time success. 3DSP's capabilities are used by Internet, broadband, wireless and multimedia designers to implement next generation products. For more information on the company and its products, visit http://www.3dsp.com or contact 3DSP headquarters at 16271 Laguna Canyon Road, Irvine, CA 92618; phone: 949-435-0600; fax: 949-435-0700.

3DSP Corporation, 3DSP, SP-5, SP-5flex and Masterpiece are trademarks of 3DSP Corporation. Aptix and System Explorer are registered trademarks of Aptix Corporation.