Digital Signal Processing: World Class Designs

Preface

What is this DSP thing I keep hearing about? What’s so great about it? What do DSP engineers do? And how do I get in on the action? Great questions! Take a journey with me and all will be revealed…

Defining DSP

First, let’s figure out what DSP is. The acronym DSP has two alternate meanings: Digital Signal Processing and Digital Signal Processor. Let’s look at each, starting with digital signal processing. The meaning of “digital” is obvious—it means we are working in the world of 1’s and 0’s, and not in the analog world. The idea of a “signal” is a bit trickier. Our friend Wikipedia defines the term as “any time-varying or spatial-varying quantity.” Speech is an example of a time-varying quantity; the pitch and volume of a voice changes ...