Traditionally audio Digital Signal Processing developers think of using only traditional Digital Signal Processors - but there is some surprising benchmark results with what can be done with the Cortex-A application processors as well as the Cortex-M4 and Cortex-M7s. Becoming aware of all these plus knowing exactly how much processing power your application needs will more accurately help with finding the best processor and reducing BOM costs.
Audio Weaver platform can help with accurately benchmarking a complete audio chain. Why is benchmarking a real design on a dev board important? Unlike the MCUs, cache memory plays an important unpredictable behavior on the Cortex-As. So it is important to be able to actually benchmark already optimized DSP code on the actual board.
For this reason, Audio Weaver by DSP Concepts can save the traditional DSP development time by 90%. Prototype and development can be done prior to hardware readiness on a dev board, the design and code is production and target ready, and real time tuning can be done in the form factor so that there's no need to re-write and re-iterate coding to fit processor footprint.
Below is the presentation given at the AES (Audio Engineering Society) 2014 conference in Los Angeles by pbeckmann, founder of DSP Concepts.
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Maybeyou've heard of Arduino? Perhaps even Teensy? Teensy 3.1 (based on Freescale Kinetis) is currently were pretty where most ARM-based Arduino development is happening. Arduino is shipping an ARM-based product, but if you look at their software repositories, it's very clear nearly all official Arduino open source development is still targeting 8 bit AVR.
I'm developing what you'd call "middleware", which the Arduino world calls "libraries", and also improving the higher level components of the toolchain (gcc is at the low level), used by many thousands of smaller companies, hobbyists, entrepreneurs, students and enthusiasts. Much of this is porting & maintaining 8 bit code on 32 bit ARM, and some involves developing brand new software that dramatically leverages the 32 bit hardware, DMA and more advanced peripherals. Examples include a LED control library called OctoWS2811 and recently easy-to-use audio capability.
It's great for your traditional corporate customers that you've given IAR & Keil early technical access, so their tools are ready to use. But as a small, independent shop trying to create a first-rate Arduino experience on top of Cortex-M4, and hopefully Cortex-M7, I really do depend on you guys to publish those technical documents.