A cost-effective media processor for embedded applications [audio decoder example]

This paper presents a low-cost media processor which was specially designed for mid-range embedded applications. The key feature is to extend the media processing capabilities of the traditional low-end microcontrollers. Main components include a PIC16C-compatible 8-bit CPU with multimedia extensions, which are comprised of a single-instruction-multiple-data instruction-set, and a reformed memory interface to improve the efficiencies of DSP-oriented memory accesses. An MP3 audio decoder has been implemented as an example to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed processor, while the circuit gate count is kept smaller than the designs which are based on high-end microprocessors or digital signal processors.