Is DSP really dead?

[Editor’s note: Gene Frantz’s post is copied here as a guest post to allow the guest posts on this topic to be gathered in one place. Check out Gene’s other posts at On the Fringe with Gene Frantz.]

I am currently running a series looking at where technology will be in 2020. I hope you are enjoying it! I wanted to break into that series for a minute to comment on a paper I just finished reading from Robert Cravotta (EDN Magazine) entitled: “The evolving landscape of digital signal processing.”

It’s probably a good time for me to add to Robert’s well written view of where DSP is headed. After reading the article, or on first glance, it may appear that DSP is dead - which is why I feel it is important for me to add to Robert’s paper. And, since this is the message (DSP is dead) I began driving inside of TI several years ago, I thought it would be good to continue that discussion in this more public forum.

When we introduced our first DSP device (TMS32010) in 1982 there was little in the industry that could match its performance. But, it became apparent to me in the late 1990’s that a new era of signal processing was emerging. Most microprocessors, microcontrollers and FPGAs were beginning to have enough performance to be reasonable alternatives to a DSP, at least for relatively simple DSP algorithms. I also noticed that for many of the new opportunities the general purpose DSP was not adequate. We, at TI, decided to address this head on and put together a small team that began looking at a new concept to add an accelerator to enhance the performance of the DSP. I called the accelerators “semi-programmable DSPs” since within a very narrow application segment the accelerator was infinitely programmable. For example, the 16-bit hardware multiplier (our first accelerator – used on the TMS32010) was infinitely programmable as long as what you wanted to do was 16 X 16 bit multiply. One of our senior managers thought it best that we not use these accelerators as the market might figure out that the DSP could be replaced with an ARM plus accelerator combination. I countered with the fact that the TMS32010 was nothing more than a microcontroller with an accelerator (i.e., hardware multiplier). I even went as far as to give my crude internal explanation that “DSP, as a product, is dead.” But, even more importantly, “DSP as a technology would enable every product we made in the future.”

In fact our DSP product line has reflected that notion for well over a decade now. Whereas the TMS32010 was a DSP for all markets, through the years our DSP product line has reflected a different story. The TMS320C2xx family became processors for the motor control market. The TMS320C5xx family became processors for the handheld cell phone market, later augmented by the OMAP family of processors. The TMS320C6xx family became the processor for the video processing and communications infrastructure markets, later to be augmented by our Davinci product line.

So, here we are well into the 21st century and we are asking ourselves if DSP is dead. This is such unfortunate timing because when you really look at this, the contrary is true…the use of DSP is expanding more rapidly than ever before!

We sometimes forget where we are in the world of DSP.

Our:

-Phone system is digital

-Audio is digital, from the handheld to the theatre

-Pictures are digital

-TV is digital

-Control is digital

All of this technology revolution is the result of DSP technology and high performance math engines. And, this will be the basis of the next wave of innovation. That’s right, it is only beginning and not ending. It’s an exciting time, the caterpillar is about to become a butterfly.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic. Leave your comments here [or here].

Gene Frantz - TI Principal Fellow, Futurist and Business Development Manager, DSP – Texas Instruments