Delivering High Performance Audio & Video Processing to Embedded Applications New generations of Internet appliances, phones and PDAs will offer higher levels of streaming media performance (film, video phone, music and more), and more human-oriented interfaces (voice and handwriting recognition). These require embedded processors with higher levels of DSP performance while maintaining the low power characteristics required for long battery life. The ARM SIMD media extensions increase the processing capability of ARM solutions in high-performance applications while offering the low power consumption required by portable, battery-powered devices. The SIMD extensions are optimized for a broad range of software applications including video and audio codecs, where the extensions increase performance by up to a factor of four. NEONTM Technology
ARM's SIMD solution has been extended with the introduction of ARM NEON media acceleration technology. NEON technology presents an extensive set of new instructions for future ARM processors that provides powerful, flexible acceleration of media and signal processing applicatiuons on ARM core-based platforms. For further details . ARMv6 SIMD Features: 2-4x performance increase for audio and video processing Simultaneous computation of 2x16-bit or 4x8-bit operands Fractional arithmetic User definable saturation modes (arbitrary word-width) Dual 16x16 multiply-add/subtract 32x23 fractional MAC Simultaneous 8/16-bit select operations
Applications: SIMD extensions simplify development of application software by offering a single tool-chain and processing device. This speeds time-to-market as software plays an increasingly important role in product development. In addition, the extensions are completely transparent to the operating system (OS), allowing existing OS ports to be used. New applications running on the OS can be written to explicitly use the SIMD extensions, providing an additional power/performance advantage. Performance
The ARM SIMD extensions enable increased performance without the need for very high clock frequencies, delivering up to 1.6 GOPS (Giga Operations per Second) at 400MHz and 3.2 GOPS at 800MHz. This performance is achieved with a "near zero" increase in power consumption on a typical implementation. In many applications -- including smartphone solutions and similar embedded applications requiring considerable signal processing -- the SIMD extensions eliminate the need for additional hardware accelerators. The SIMD extensions provide complete compatibility with the Thumb® instruction set, ensuring that all OS and application code can be reused on SIMD-enabled, ARM core-based devices. The extensions are broadly applicable across a wide range of market segments including mass storage, automotive, consumer entertainment and digital imaging. ARM SIMD-enabled solutions will be licensed as intellectual property (IP) cores for implementation within application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or application specific standard product (ASSP). | 
