Analog Devices' 600MHz TigerSHARC Earns Top Floating-Point Benchmark Score.

Business Editors

electronicaUSA 2004

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 30, 2004

BDTI results reinforce industry leadership of TigerSHARC

Processor.

Analog Devices, Inc. (NYSE: ADI), a global leader in high-performance semiconductors for signal processing applications, has garnered leading benchmark results from independent signal-processing technology analysis firm, Berkeley Design Technology, Inc. (BDTI) for its ADSP-TS201 TigerSHARC(R) Processor. BDTI's analysis found that the 600-MHz TigerSHARC Processor registered the highest floating-point BDTImark2000(TM) score of any processor architecture tested by BDTI to date. The BDTImark2000(TM) is one of the industry's most respected measures for digital signal processor (DSP) performance and is a frequent resource for system designers evaluating processors.(1)

Specifically, the 600-MHz TS201's BDTImark2000(TM) score of 4430 significantly exceeded the BDTImark2000 scores of 3130 for the 1.4-GHz Intel(R) Pentium(R) III, 750 for the 240-MHz SH775x processor from Renesas, and 1100 for the 225-MHz TMS320C67x processor from Texas Instruments.

"In the past few months ADI has doubled the clock rate of both of its key floating-point architectures--TigerSHARC and SHARC," BDTI observed. "It appears that ADI has no intention of ceding the pole position in the floating-point DSP market."(2)

The ADSP-TS201's floating-point design delivers application developers greater computational precision and accuracy, while its high-speed, industry-leading on-chip memory density and excellent multi-processor support make it a natural choice for applications ranging from wireless base stations, radar and sonar systems, and high-precision medical imaging to instrumentation and professional audio, according to Gerald A. McGuire, General Manager, Media Platforms and Services Group, Analog Devices, Inc.

"Once again, TigerSHARC has distinguished itself as a best-in-class processor by coupling the world's highest floating point processor with the world's highest amount of on-chip memory and I/O," McGuire said. "For deeply embedded signal processing applications, this allows designers to focus on applications, not on removing system level bottlenecks typically encountered in high-cost FPGA-based designs and expensive-to-develop ASIC-based designs. Additionally, the unique ability of the TigerSHARC to process 1-, 8-, 16- and 32-bit fixed-point data gives customers unparalleled flexibility in native data type support."

The ADSP-TS201 has earned a reputation as having the best performance density measured in terms of cost, power consumption and efficient use of board space. Offering 3.6 billion floating-point operations per second (GFLOPS) at 2.2 watts, the 600-MHz TigerSHARC has the industry's best floating-point performance-per-watt ratio. In a typical multi-processor wireless base station implementation, that translates to cooler operating temperatures, which enables systems developers to design in more processors per board to meet their performance needs. For more information on the TigerSHARC Processor, please visit: www.analog.com/tigersharc or see ADI at electronicaUSA with the Embedded Systems Conference (eUSA), Booth #1902, March 30-April 1, 2004 in San Francisco.

About Analog Devices

Analog Devices is a leading manufacturer of precision high-performance integrated circuits used in analog and digital signal processing applications. The company is headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts and employs approximately 8,600 people worldwide. It has manufacturing facilities in Massachusetts, California, North Carolina, Ireland, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom. Analog Devices' stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the company is included in the S&P 500 Index.

(1) The BDTImark2000(TM) provides a summary measure of DSP speed. For more information and scores see www.BDTI.com. Scores (C) 2004 BDTI.

(1) Excerpted from October 2003 DSP Insider, (C) 2003 BDTI. Contact [e-mail] for information.

(2) Excerpted from October 2003 DSP Insider, (C) 2003 BDTI. Contact [e-mail] for information.

TigerSHARC is a registered trademark of Analog Devices, Inc. All other trademarks included herein are the property of their respective owners.