TI vs ADI

I have experience coding Motorola 56K DSPs mostly for audio applications.  I
want to make myself more marketable by learning a new chip.  I'm thinking to
buy an eval board and start learning either a TI or an ADI platform.  (I've
also written a fair amount of C/C++ for DSP apps but NOT on a DSProcessor).
Questions:
1.)In the current market which company has a bigger market share?  Which
would be a better bet for finding work these days?
 2.)Any suggestions for a good 'starter' chip/eval board from each company?
Thank you in advance,
Rob




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"Rob Hutchinson" <rhutch7@kdsi.net> wrote in message
news:40f6b21e_5@corp.newsgroups.com...
> I have experience coding Motorola 56K DSPs mostly for audio applications.
I
> want to make myself more marketable by learning a new chip.  I'm thinking
to
> buy an eval board and start learning either a TI or an ADI platform.
(I've
> also written a fair amount of C/C++ for DSP apps but NOT on a
DSProcessor).
> Questions:
> 1.)In the current market which company has a bigger market share?  Which
> would be a better bet for finding work these days?
>  2.)Any suggestions for a good 'starter' chip/eval board from each
company?
> Thank you in advance,
> Rob

I suspect you'll never get a clear enough answer since you can't go terribly
wrong with either one and the answers can vary based on the application and
market.
My only other suggestion is to check the job listings from the companies
that you *might* be interested in. Based on the job postings it will be
obvious what chips they are using/prefer (or if they even care if you have
prior experience). The results from your findings should be enough to bias
your choice.

Cheers
Bhaskar

"Rob Hutchinson" <rhutch7@kdsi.net> wrote in
news:40f6b21e_5@corp.newsgroups.com: 

> I have experience coding Motorola 56K DSPs mostly for audio
> applications.  I want to make myself more marketable by learning a new
> chip.  I'm thinking to buy an eval board and start learning either a
> TI or an ADI platform.  (I've also written a fair amount of C/C++ for
> DSP apps but NOT on a DSProcessor). Questions:
> 1.)In the current market which company has a bigger market share? 
> Which would be a better bet for finding work these days?
>  2.)Any suggestions for a good 'starter' chip/eval board from each
>  company? 
> Thank you in advance,
> Rob
> 

If you look at sales of DSP processors and exclude the very high volume 
markets such as cell phones and disk drives, you will find that both ADI 
& TI have about the same market share. This number is about 30% each with 
everyone else taking a smaller piece of the remaining 40%.

I think the opportunity for a developer is about even. Most of us belong 
to one camp or the other and are probably no longer objective about our 
choice. I certainly have not regretted my personal choice of working with 
ADI. Our business (which I founded) is built around ADI DSPs.

As an employer, I am not nearly as interested in which specific DSPs 
someone has experience in as other factors. 

I think you should come to the comp.dsp conference, maybe win a free ADI 
SHARC EZ-Kit (your odds are pretty good at winning) and network with some 
experienced DSP guys. This is a very good opportunity for a newbie and 
very inexpensive.


-- 
Al Clark
Danville Signal Processing, Inc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
comp.dsp conference July 28 - Aug 1, 2004

details at http://www.danvillesignal.com/index.php?id=compdsp
email: compdsp@danvillesignal.com

Who says you can't teach an old dog a new DSP trick?

Rob Hutchinson wrote:

> I have experience coding Motorola 56K DSPs mostly for audio applications.  I
> want to make myself more marketable by learning a new chip.  I'm thinking to
> buy an eval board and start learning either a TI or an ADI platform.  (I've
> also written a fair amount of C/C++ for DSP apps but NOT on a DSProcessor).
> Questions:
> 1.)In the current market which company has a bigger market share?  Which
> would be a better bet for finding work these days?
>  2.)Any suggestions for a good 'starter' chip/eval board from each company?
> Thank you in advance,
> Rob
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Pick one at random, be ready to look someone in the eye and say that you 
can learn _any_ new processor in a minimum time if you've done it once.

If I were hiring for a job I'd be more inclined to pick someone who's 
worked on a number of different processors and is flexible enough to 
learn yet another one than to pick some specialist who can't thumb 
through a user's manual and figure things out.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Rob Hutchinson wrote:

> Questions:
> 1.)In the current market which company has a bigger market share? 

Do you aim at servicing old products - or developing new ones?
In the first case, find your favorite.
In the other case, this knowledge won't help: there's a good chance 
that a job has to do with a new branch or project in an enterprise
which might be about trying another DSP...
 
> Which would be a better bet for finding work these days?
Two years ago, I knew lots of small firms dealing with TI because 
the market demanded it; almost no small team dealt with ADI, while 
it seemed to be vice versa in the bigger enterprises, especially in 
the audio area. But that might look different from another point of 
view, so it's probably my very personal experience.
I think there's a tendency that this changes, at the moment.
ADI seems to become more popular, since there's a Blackfin.
That's certainly the one which I would recommend.

>  2.)Any suggestions for a good 'starter' chip/eval board from each
>  company?
I'd propose a board with 96kS audio i/o on board, but you can get 
that from both.
I'd use boards from TI or ADI, not from third party.
Check if software tools come along with a free full license, if cost 
is an issue.



Bernhard

Tim Wescott  <tim@wescottnospamdesign.com> wrote:
>
>Pick one at random, be ready to look someone in the eye and say that you 
>can learn _any_ new processor in a minimum time if you've done it once.
>
>If I were hiring for a job I'd be more inclined to pick someone who's 
>worked on a number of different processors and is flexible enough to 
>learn yet another one than to pick some specialist who can't thumb 
>through a user's manual and figure things out.

From your lips to God's ears for this fellow.

My experience ten years ago was slightly different.  I'd applied for 
a gig with a then-prominent synthesizer manufacturer.  They were asking 
for TMS320C54, as I recall, and I'd played with other TI silicon,
as well as various Motorola processors (not only DSPs), and some
Intel stuff.  The phone screen went swimmingly, and concluded with
the interviewer saying I was just the person they were looking for
despite my not having the exact TI chip under my belt, a detail
which I finessed by mentioning that, after the first half-dozen,
learning another processor was more incremental than revolutionary.

Several weeks passed.

No word.

I finally called back and asked what had happened.  The same guy
who had just about crawled down the phone line to give me a big
wet sloppy kiss informed me that they didn't have the time to train
someone on a DSP and were looking for an engineer with previous
experience on the exact machine.  I rang off and went about my day,
which included a phone interview for the gig I eventually landed.

They were still looking for that perfect match six months later.


I viewed, as Wodehouse wrote, their subsequent career with 
considerable interest.  Sending an email pointing a possible source 
of their time-to-market problems would have been rude, however.


This experience was the exception, I'm glad to say, and serves as
a useful Bad Example when the time comes to figure who has Clues
and who has not.


Francois.

(null) wrote:
> Tim Wescott  <tim@wescottnospamdesign.com> wrote:
> 
>>Pick one at random, be ready to look someone in the eye and say that you 
>>can learn _any_ new processor in a minimum time if you've done it once.
>>
>>If I were hiring for a job I'd be more inclined to pick someone who's 
>>worked on a number of different processors and is flexible enough to 
>>learn yet another one than to pick some specialist who can't thumb 
>>through a user's manual and figure things out.
> 
> 
> From your lips to God's ears for this fellow.
> 
> My experience ten years ago was slightly different.  I'd applied for 
> a gig with a then-prominent synthesizer manufacturer.  They were asking 
> for TMS320C54, as I recall, and I'd played with other TI silicon,
> as well as various Motorola processors (not only DSPs), and some
> Intel stuff.  The phone screen went swimmingly, and concluded with
> the interviewer saying I was just the person they were looking for
> despite my not having the exact TI chip under my belt, a detail
> which I finessed by mentioning that, after the first half-dozen,
> learning another processor was more incremental than revolutionary.
> 
> Several weeks passed.
> 
> No word.
> 
> I finally called back and asked what had happened.  The same guy
> who had just about crawled down the phone line to give me a big
> wet sloppy kiss informed me that they didn't have the time to train
> someone on a DSP and were looking for an engineer with previous
> experience on the exact machine.  I rang off and went about my day,
> which included a phone interview for the gig I eventually landed.
> 
> They were still looking for that perfect match six months later.
> 
> 
> I viewed, as Wodehouse wrote, their subsequent career with 
> considerable interest.  Sending an email pointing a possible source 
> of their time-to-market problems would have been rude, however.
> 
> 
> This experience was the exception, I'm glad to say, and serves as
> a useful Bad Example when the time comes to figure who has Clues
> and who has not.
> 
> 
> Francois.
> 
I didn't say what _others_ would do -- just me.  And I'm out of the 
corporate world and into contracting, so it'll be a while before I 
participate in any hiring decisions.

It is quite frustrating to be on the other end of that -- where you want 
to hire someone who is obviously smart and has many relevant skills, but 
who misses some magic juju that your project manager is looking for and 
that you think is irrelevant or overcomeable.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

"Rob Hutchinson" <rhutch7@kdsi.net> wrote in message news:<40f6b21e_5@corp.newsgroups.com>...
> I have experience coding Motorola 56K DSPs mostly for audio applications.  I
> want to make myself more marketable by learning a new chip.  I'm thinking to
> buy an eval board and start learning either a TI or an ADI platform.  (I've
> also written a fair amount of C/C++ for DSP apps but NOT on a DSProcessor).
> Questions:
> 1.)In the current market which company has a bigger market share?  Which
> would be a better bet for finding work these days?
>  2.)Any suggestions for a good 'starter' chip/eval board from each company?
> Thank you in advance,
> Rob
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
> -----==  Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

TI and ADI do have roughly an equal market share (as some else pointed
out). Its frusterating to chose one over the other... since both
company's claim that they're better than the competition ;)

Well, from my experience, ADI is much simpler to learn than TI. The
instruction set (assembly) on ADI looks like a higher level language
rather than assembly. Also, ADI's processors are much more scalable...
so even if u learn on a lower end processor (21xx series), working
with the higher end (blackfin) isn't a problem... ADI's eval kits are
however a pain... you can't get them to easily work in standalone
operation; they must always be connected to a computer :( And as far
as I remember, the simulator wasn't included in the CrossCore
development kit supplied with the eval kit.

On the other hand, TI's support seems to be far better than ADI (which
in my area is as good as non-existant). TI also has the OMAP series,
which incorporates a TMS320C5x core with an ARM v4T core on a single
die.



Aditya Sane

> 
> Well, from my experience, ADI is much simpler to learn than TI. The
> instruction set (assembly) on ADI looks like a higher level language
> rather than assembly. Also, ADI's processors are much more scalable...
> so even if u learn on a lower end processor (21xx series), working
> with the higher end (blackfin) isn't a problem... ADI's eval kits are
> however a pain... you can't get them to easily work in standalone
> operation; they must always be connected to a computer 

From my experience that's pretty false. You can program the onboard
flash memory and boot from there in standalone mode, bootloaders are
available

> :( And as far
> as I remember, the simulator wasn't included in the CrossCore
> development kit supplied with the eval kit.

But you can simulate (should be called debug instead?) from within an
EzLite session. 90 Day Test Drives are available, too.

JaaC

> 
> On the other hand, TI's support seems to be far better than ADI (which
> in my area is as good as non-existant). TI also has the OMAP series,
> which incorporates a TMS320C5x core with an ARM v4T core on a single
> die.
> 
> 
> 
> Aditya Sane

Jaime Andres Aranguren Cardona wrote:

>> 
>> Well, from my experience, ADI is much simpler to learn than TI.
>> The instruction set (assembly) on ADI looks like a higher level
>> language rather than assembly. Also, ADI's processors are much
>> more scalable... so even if u learn on a lower end processor
>> (21xx series), working with the higher end (blackfin) isn't a
>> problem... ADI's eval kits are however a pain... you can't get
>> them to easily work in standalone operation; they must always be
>> connected to a computer
> 
> From my experience that's pretty false. You can program the
> onboard flash memory and boot from there in standalone mode,
> bootloaders are available

Correct. That's what I do:
EZ-Lite-Board is in a standalone environment.
Only to modify the program, I connect a USB cable from my PC,
then it's removed again, and the DSP boots out of flash.

> 
>> :( And as far
>> as I remember, the simulator wasn't included in the CrossCore
>> development kit supplied with the eval kit.
> 
> But you can simulate (should be called debug instead?) from within
> an EzLite session. 90 Day Test Drives are available, too.

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but when I bought my eval 
board (EZ-Lite 21161), it came with a full license which is 
restricted to the EZ-Lite board, but not in time.

> 
> JaaC
> 
>> 
>> On the other hand, TI's support seems to be far better than ADI
>> (which in my area is as good as non-existant). TI also has the
>> OMAP series, which incorporates a TMS320C5x core with an ARM v4T
>> core on a single die.
>> 
I guess most of us, who have started to 'love' their family, would 
never switch to the other one. 
Probably both are doing very well, so that you can go with either...
 
>> 
>> 
>> Aditya Sane

Bernhard