The Oak is also a 16-
bit DSP i.e. a
microprocessor designed for
Digital Signal Processing. It was designed by
Israeli
hardware company
DSP Group, and is generally sold as a
soft core (a design for an
integrated circuit) rather than as a physical chip.
The main features of the Oak DSP are as follows:
- 16-bit data and address busses able to access 64 kwords of memory.
- 16 x 16 bit multiplier with 32 bit output, able to be shifted one or two bits.
- 36-bit accumulators for addition and logic operations.
- Efficient multiply-accumulate architecture capable of single-cycle "multiply and accumulate last result" instructions.
- Able to access program memory and 2 blocks of data memory (known as x and y) simultaneously on one clock cycle.
- Fast register-switching instructions.
- Low power consumption.
- C compiler based on GCC, with several extensions to use features of the DSP architecture.
DSP Group has produced a number of more powerful chips, such as the Teak and Teak Lite since the Oak, but it is still used by a few companies as a small, low power DSP for mobile applications.