PPMA: Parallel Programming Model for an Audio Application Specific Multi-core DSP

In recent years, multi-core digital signal processors (DSPs) have been widely used to improve execution efficiency in a variety of applications. In order to fully explore the parallel processing capacity of DSPs, a well-designed parallel programming model is essential for programmers. In this paper, a parallel programming model for a self-designed multi-core audio DSP (MAD) is proposed based on both shared-memory and message-passing communication mechanisms. A set of application program interfaces (APIs) of PPMA are provided to realize inter-core data transmission and synchronization controlling with high efficiency. To evaluate performance improvement of audio applications using PPMA, a low bit-rate speech codec application is ported to the MAD. With the help of PPMA, task scheduling of speech codec can be implemented conveniently. Experimental results also show that the overhead of inter-core communication in MAD is negligible compared to the parallel speedup achieved by PPMA.