PE1-5.4 Signal Processing Devices & Architectures

Work through these

• General purpose processors

  The most flexible option and the least efficient. It is the baseline the other four are measured against.

• Digital signal processors

  Processors bent towards the multiply-accumulate inner loop, which is what this work mostly is. The same devices as in the signal processing subject, in a system role.

• Field programmable gate arrays

  Reconfigurable logic, which sits between software flexibility and hardware efficiency. It is the device that made this whole field practical.

• Specialized processing units; the Tilera Tile processor

  The many-core option, which trades a familiar programming model for parallelism. Worth knowing as a category even though specific products come and go.

• Application-specific integrated circuits

  Fixed hardware, which is the most efficient and the least flexible. It is the option the whole field exists to avoid, which is why it is here for contrast.

• Hybrid solutions

  Combining the above on one device, which is what real systems actually do. The interesting question becomes which function goes where.

• Choosing a DSP solution

  How the choice is actually made, against requirements rather than preference. Power, volume and how much the design might have to change are the deciding factors.

• Comparison of all processor types against power, cost and flexibility

  The summary table, which is the point of the whole topic. Being able to reconstruct it from the properties of each device is the skill to take away.