Meeting the Pro Audio Challenge White Paper

In the professional audio market, engineers are continually looking for ways to achieve the highest possible audio quality for their applications whether they are creating mixers, musical instruments or synthesizers. Design engineers have also been confronted with meeting a narrow time-to-market window, while maintaining a robust set of new features and functionalities without adding additional cost or increasing latency. Low cost, high performance digital signal processors (DSPs) have allowed engineers to meet these demands while improving audio applications. The processor that sits at the core and the development tools available to support the complete design cycle have a significant impact on digital audio applications that meet the cost and performance demands of the professional audio market. Texas Instruments has recently launched three new floating point digital signal processors based on a new core that is completely optimized for audio applications, and they are code compatible with the entire spectrum of the TMS320C67x™ generation of DSPs. To further speed the development cycle with these new processors, Lyrtech, Incorporated has created the Professional Audio Development Kit (PADK), which is a complete development board that will allow engineers to evaluate and begin the development cycle without having to first create a prototype board. The following paper will discuss the specific attributes of the PADK and how it makes it possible for engineers to leverage the new TMS320C672x DSP devices for professional audio applications.