Motorola DSP56k

Introduction

The Motorola DSP56k series is a 24-bit digital signal processor architecture from Motorola. The smallest addressable unit in the DSP56k is 24 bits; for pointers, only the lower 16 bits is used, supporting at most 192 kilooctets of RAM. A DSP56004-compatible core is used in the somewhat popular SigmaTelSTMP3xxx digital audio player system-on-a-chip package.

Compilers for older series, including 560xx, 5616x, 563xx and 566xx are hard to come by; there are several incomplete ports of GCC, and a few open source assemblers, dating back to early 1990s. The 568xx series, however, has a freely downloadable IDE and an adequate-seeming port of GCC from 2004.

Tools

DSP560xx

• dsp56k-gcc: A port of GCC version 1.37.1 for 56001, with copyrights dating back to 1991. Last known port version 1.03 available at http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/cae/dsp/dsp56k-tools/
• a56: An assembler for DSP56001, dating back to 1992. Last known port version 1.1 available at http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/cae/dsp/dsp56k-tools/
• g56k or DSP56KCC?: A port of GCC from Motorola; requires Motorola's own proprietary assembler, or a substitute (?). Referenced on the comp.dsp newsgroup, but no working downloads found. There's a set of manuals available.

DSP561xx

• gcc5616: Another quick port of GCC 1.40 to DSP5616x series. Last known port version 0.2 at http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/cae/dsp/dsp56k-tools/

DSP563xx and DSP566xx

• Suite56: Assembler, linker and simulator tools (but no compiler?) for 563xx and 566xx series, available from Freescale web site, for free after registration
• gcc-dsp563: A port of GCC version 1.37.1 for DSP563xx series. Last known port version 1.29 available at http://chameleon.gabiot.com/ (also includes a port of GDB 3.5)

DSP568xx

• Freescale CodeWarrior IDE with compilers, simulators, debuggers, examples, etc for Windows. The entire 360MB download is available from Freescale web site for free after registration.
• DSP56800 Toolchain: a port of GCC version 3.3.2, GNU binutils, debugger, assembler, etc. Latest web site activity from April 2004. Available from dsp56800.sourceforge.net.