Intel Corp sees its new Native Signal Processing specification, which leaves the main processor to handle all the tricky audio and video processing (CI No 2,625) as an ideal way to eat up the MIPS on the desktop and to make its future iAPX-86 processors must have toys for all but the least aspiring users, and this week it unrolls the road map for Native Signal Processing at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference. It reckons that the software can sweep away a host of support chips, so that even the most basic personal computers can include include programmable modems, 16-bit audio support, video decompression and telephony functions. According to Infoworld, Intel plans to incorporate Native Signal Processing into the motherboards and Pentium chip sets it makes – its high-volume motherboard customers include Gateway 2000 Inc, Dell Computer Corp, Zenith Data Systems Corp, Digital Equipment Corp and AT&T Global Information Solutions. The company has said the software will require at least a 75MHz Pentium but 100MHz and up parts are thought to be a more realistic target. Intel is expected to discuss Native Audio and Digital Simultaneous Voice and Data software modems, which are expected in the second half of the year from third-party vendors. Motherboards with support for the new routines are expected to include a telephone jack, a data pump chip for the modem, and a coder-decoder for handling audio, and Intel’s umbrella term for the ensemble is the Target Reference Platform. This is said to include Windows95 features such as the Display Control Interface and the Windows Telephony programming interface, support for the IA-Spox real-time signal processing development environment, and third-generation Pentium chip sets such as Intel’s Triton. IA-Spox, the Intel variant of the Dialogic Corp Spox signal processing operating system, is already being used with signal processors, making it easier for third parties to convert their signal programs for Native Signal Processing.
