C H A P T E R 12 Optimizing DSP Software Robert Oshana Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), once a niche product used only in expensive, high-end apps with extreme computing requirements, are now found practically everywhere, from cell phones to digital cameras and in all sorts of data acquisition equipment. A DSP is a general purpose microprocessor, but it has special instructions that handle certain common signal processing algorithms efficiently, and they generally use two different data busses that can exchange data simultaneously. DSPs are found solely in those applications that have severe performance requirements. In this chapter Rob Oshana covers three intertwined subjects: · What a DSP can do · How the compiler converts C code to DSP-specific sequences of instructions