Voice Over IP

PREDICTABILITY OF PERFORMANCE

Earlier, we discussed the critical need for DSPs to support real-time applications. Therefore, they must exhibit predictable execution performance because of the tight time constraints involved in real-time execution. In contrast, some generalized processors use code that may consume a different number of instruction cycles depending on what branching operations may take place. Consequently, it is quite difficult with these architectures to predict how long it will take for certain operations to take place. This lack of predictability makes it difficult to optimize code or to predict the timing of the execution of the code in certain situations.

Since the DSP programmer determines the exact set of instructions when ...