The Comparison between Digital Signal Processor and General-Purpose Processor
DSP处理器和通用处理器的比较

With the wide spreaded applications of embedded system, the power and compliexity of functionality imple- mented in embedded devices is increasing. Thus it is necessary for embedded processor to support both arithmetic-in- tensive and control-intensive computations. The Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) can effectively support the arith- metic-intensive and real-time computations; on the other hand, General-Purpose Processors (GPPs) are suitable for a variety of applications which are control-intensive. This paper is to discuss the differences between DSPs and GPPs in instruction set, architecture type and memory architecture according to their different functions. Performance evalua- tion then is done to prove it. Preliminary results indicate that either DSPs or GPPs can effectively support both arith- metic-intensive and control-intensive computations. Combining them in architecture and developing a hybrid-architec- ture processors is necessary for meeting the requirements of current embedded systems.