A scalable hybrid multiprocessor for real-time digital audio signal processing

The real-time performance requirements of large scale digital audio processing systems demand the use of a computation engine rated in thousands of MIPs. Currently available processors are not capable of operating at these speeds, and so multiprocessor architectures must be constructed in order to implement such systems. The choice of processor, communication scheme and interconnection topology are all important design considerations if an efficient multiprocessor is to be realised. The authors relate these three design choices to the design of a scalable hybrid digital signal multiprocessor offering a very efficient inter-processor communication scheme that allows processor idle time to be reduced to zero