High-Performance Processors
AltiVec Technology
™
Overview
Freescale Semiconductor’s advanced
AltiVec™ technology is designed to enable
exceptional general-purpose processing
power for high-performance PowerPC
®
processors in embedded computing and
communications applications. This
leading-edge technology is engineered to
support high-bandwidth data processing
and algorithmic-intensive computations, all
in a single-chip solution. AltiVec
technology has proven itself to be a leader
in enabling high performance, with
continued “best-in-class” performance
ratings from the Embedded Microprocessor
Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC
®
), an
organization of semiconductor, compiler
and RTOS vendors.
AltiVec technology offers a programmable
solution that can be adapted to changing
standards and customer requirements for
protecting technology investments.
The preferred programming environment is
the C and C++ languages favored by
embedded systems developers, and
Freescale is working with leading tool
providers to develop simulators,
assemblers, linkers and compilers to help
provide full support for the AltiVec
technology. In addition, numerous
software libraries are available to help
jump-start software development using
the AltiVec technology.
AltiVec technology is engineered to bring
exceptional power to applications such as
telecommunications switches, IP telephony
gateways, speech processing systems,
image and video processing systems,
virtual private network servers, high-resolution
3-D graphics and more. With its DSP-like
computing power, AltiVec technology also
enables high-performance PowerPC
processors to address markets and
applications in which performance must
be balanced with power consumption,
system cost and peripheral integration.
The Results Are In:
Performance Benchmarks
with AltiVec Technology
EEMBC develops meaningful performance
benchmarks for the hardware and software used
in embedded systems. Through the combined
efforts of its members, EEMBC benchmarks
have become an industry standard for evaluating
the capabilities of embedded processors,
compilers, and Java™ language implementations
according to objective, clearly defined,
application-based criteria.
Freescale Semiconductor’s* family of
high-performance PowerPC
®
processors are
frequently and rigorously put through EEMBC
benchmark certification tests. The graph shows
performance improvements when processors
are tested out-of-the-box versus when they are
tested with AltiVec technology optimizations for
telecommunications and networking
applications. Telecommunications tests cover
autocorrelation, bit allocation, convolutional
encoder, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and
Viterbi decoder. Networking tests cover packet
flow, route lookup and Open Shortest
Path First (OSPF) protocol.
EEMBC
®
PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS
EEMBC NetMark
MPC7447A with AltiVec™ Technology
MPC7447A without AltiVec™ Technology
46.7
135.0
3x faster!
EEMBC TeleMark
MPC7447A with AltiVec™ Technology
12x faster!
MPC7447A without AltiVec™ Technology
0
41.4
100
200
300
400
500.6
500
600
ETC [ ETC ]
