TI’s OMAP3503 device is the industry’s first broadly available superscalar applications processor to integrate the ARM® Cortex™-A8 core delivering a 4x performance gain over ARM9-based processors. The OMAP3503 combines multimedia-rich peripherals with high-performance productivity at handheld power levels.

Development platform for OMAP3503 processor

Mistral worked closely with TI on the OMAP3503 evaluation module (EVM), a low cost and easy-to-use development platform that is available through TI. The OMAP3503 EVM is an ideal software development and device prototyping platform for users to get started on their multimedia-based applications and devices. The OMAP3503 EVM will power the design of next-generation applications that will integrate advanced user interfaces and web browsing capabilities ideal for embedded gaming devices, portable video and music players, personal medical monitoring equipment and portable navigation systems.

The EVM is designed with a modular and extendable architecture and will also support future OMAP35x processors. Due to its scalability, the EVM offers a smooth migration path for our existing users of the OMAP2530 EVM by simply changing the processor module on the OMAP2530 EVM. This allows users to easily harness the performance and power benefits of the OMAP3503 processor at minimal cost.

“Mistral’s comprehensive and custom hardware and software support has been vital to the successful development of TI’s OMAP3503 EVM,” said Gerard Andrews, OMAP marketing manager, TI. “Mistral’s technical expertise and TI’s flexible EVM help designers quickly take advantage of the performance and power levels of the OMAP processors to differentiate their smart connected devices.”

Custom solutions on OMAP35x platform

Mistral’s customized offerings on the OMAP3503 platform include hardware board design, reference designs, driver development, board support packages, codecs and system integration. These solutions will facilitate developers in leveraging the outstanding benefits of the OMAP3503 processor, which include faster user interfaces, faster data access, multi-standard (MPEG-4, H.264, Windows Media Video, RealVideo, etc.) encode and decode at DVD resolutions among others.

“Product developers are looking forward to realizing the exceptional benefits of the OMAP3503 applications processor, enabling laptop-like productivity and advanced entertainment to their applications. With our extensive experience on the OMAP platform, Mistral can help developers jump start their OMAP35x-based product development, while saving enormously on development time and costs,” said Samyeer Metrani, VP-Services (USA), Mistral Solutions.

Mistral’s latest offerings on the OMAP35x platform will be showcased at the TI Developer Conference (TIDC) held in Dallas, Texas from February 26-28, 2008, and also at Embedded Systems Conference, Silicon Valley, California from April 15-17, 2008. For demos and discussions, please contact Srinivas Panapakam at srini@mistralsolutions.com or call +1-925-577-0796.

For more information visit: www.mistralsolutions.com/OMAP3503

About the Texas Instruments Developer Network

Mistral is a member of the TI Developer Network, a community of respected, well-established companies offering products and services based on TI analog and digital technology. The Network provides a broad range of end-equipment solutions, embedded software, engineering services and development tools that help customers accelerate innovation to make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun.

The V8TS is an extremely powerful dual sub-system product consisting of digital signal processing and control processing on a single 6UVME platform. The board is ideal for usage in radar, sonar and naval applications.

The NASSCOM IT Innovation Awards aims to honor companies who have instilled innovation into existing knowledge and have come up with new ideas, products, processes or technologies that enable the business to achieve greater and better margins plough back into the business. 21 companies across the country were in the fray for the awards this year, of which eight winners were announced by NASSCOM. The winners were felicitated at the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2008, in Mumbai from 13th-15th February 2008.

Mistral’s award winning solution for the defense market, the V8TS has been designed to provide the power of both signal processing and control processing environment on a single system. The need for systems that combine DSPs and PowerPCs has grown rapidly in the past few years. Dedicated DSPs provide performance, and PowerPCs provide compatibility with commercial technology and lower software and development cost.

Salient Features of the V8TS

The DSP sub-system of the V8TS consists of 8 Analog Devices’ TS201 TigerSHARC DSPs to provide an extremely powerful multiprocessing DSP platform of 29GFLOPS with the DSP core operating @ 600MHz. The control processing subsystem is powered by PowerPC 440 @ 800MHz which provides all the processing for the peripherals & can run a Real Time OS. The board has a multi-million gate FPGA for user programmability.

Designed for use in rugged environments the operating temperature of the V8TS ranges from -40oC to +85oC.

The V8TS is the first of its kind in the world encompassing DSPs, PowerPC and the FPGA on a single VME platform. The Board Support Firmware on PPC provides strong APIs for communication between sub-systems, Ethernet, VME and other peripherals. The Software Package provided along with the V8TS includes Linux/VxWorks BSP for PowerPC in addition to VDSP support.

The V8TS provides high-speed interface with effective inter processor and inter system connectivity. It also has a PMC expansion slot. The cards can be cascaded to build a very powerful signal processing system delivering several hundred GFlops of processing power on tap.

Applications

“The use of V8TS in defense applications will help designers in saving huge costs in deploying control cards or SBCs. One V8TS card can replace 6-50 DSP cards in current airborne or naval systems resulting in less bulkier systems” said Anees Ahmed, President and CEO, Mistral Solutions.

The combination of DSP processing power and PPC with OS and peripheral support on the same VME board makes this a cost effective and easy-to-use solution for systems that need high end data processing and application control. The board is ideal for sage in radar, sonar and naval applications. The V8TS will revolutionize the development of defense, medical and communication applications like Electronic and Network centric warfare systems, Infra-red Search and Tracking systems, Mobile Surveillance systems, airborne systems, Tactical and strategic communication systems, Satellite/wireless communications systems, Naval Display Systems.

For more information on the V8TS, visit us at the Def Expo India 2008 (Stall No. 61, Hall 18) to be held at Pragati Maidan, Delhi between 16-19 February 2008 or visit www.mistralsolutions.com/V8TS

About NASSCOM

NASSCOM® is the premier trade body and chamber of commerce of IT-ITeS industries in India with over 1200 members, including over 250 multi-national companies. It was set up to facilitate business and trade in software and services and to encourage advancement of research in software technology. It has been the strongest proponent of global free trade in India. NASSCOM members are among the leading participants in the new global economy, reputed for their cutting-edge business practices and social initiatives. The nation-wide search for the IT innovators was conducted for the fourth time by NASSCOM; the award recognises organisations that come up with new ideas, products, processes or technologies that create business impact.

Naren Gupta from Nexus and Byron Askin from JAFCO Asia will represent the investors at Mistral. Naren Gupta is the Vice Chairman of Wind River Systems, the largest company in embedded systems software. Naren also serves on the Boards of some of the world's most innovative technology companies such as RedHat and TIBCO. Byron Askin is Senior Director and Head of South Asia and leads JAFCO Asia’s investment efforts in the rapidly growing India market.

“We see Nexus and JAFCO Asia adding a lot of value to the organization and its goals. Both the funds bring a wealth of resources and experience to the Mistral Management, which will assist us in building global relationships in US and Asia Pacific markets. The funding will help the company in its plans for R&D investment for design of sub systems for the growing Indian defense market and setup of its design center in USA”, said Anees Ahmed, President and CEO of Mistral.

“We see tremendous opportunities in the embedded product and service space and are excited to be partnering with an experienced and committed team”, added Naren Gupta, Founding Managing Director of Nexus India Capital.

“Mistral’s management is highly capable and has delivered consistent growth and profit margin improvement in recent years. Mistral is well positioned to benefit from increased system level complexity and an increasing outsourcing trend. We look forward to assisting the management in their efforts to enter markets in East Asia,” commented Byron Askin, Senior Director of JAFCO Asia.