Warren, New Jersey-based Star Semiconductor has announced that it has increased the speed of its signal processing integrated circuits by 250%, at the same time as cutting the price by 33% and tripling the number of high-level software building blocks: the new Star SPROC-1400 is claimed to be the world’s fastest signal processor with four 50MHz general signal processors running concurrently on a single chip, and it has a combined instruction cycle time of 25nS; the signal processor is said to be capable of running at a sustained rate of 40 MIPS; using a 0.8-micron manufacturing process, Star has reduced the size and cost of the SPROC-1400 chip, which can replace first generation digital signal processors and analogue components; the 4-GSP processor version is $74 for 1,000-up in metal quad flat packs, and the company plans to sell it for under $50 in plastic by the end of 1993; a 1-GSP version is under development and will be introduced in 1993 and a 2-GSP-version will also be available; the Star SPROClab Development System is currently available for $9,000.
