December 3, 2009 -- Is the stand-alone DSP a dying breed? It may not exactly be dying, but the DSP is not front and center as it used to be. In 2006, EDN changed the name of its annual DSP Directory to the Digital Signal-Processing Directory. This subtle change recognizes that digital-processing options have commercially expanded beyond just software-programmable-processor devices and core offerings to include other options, such as programmable fabrics, IP (intellectual property) blocks, and mixed-processing SOCs (systems on chips). These processing options complement as well as compete with each other because each faces a different set of constraints.

Signal processing involves mathematical manipulation for transforming—using filtering, Fourier transform, compression, decompression, synthesizing, recognizing, enhancing, encoding, decoding, and other methods—a set of data or a stream of signals. The continual advancement of microprocessors and growing base of developers who need this technology are leading the trend away from stand-alone DSPs.

By Robert Cravotta, EDN Technical Editor