Top-notch marketing presentations and press briefings are key to convincing prospective customers, partners, editors, and investors that a product is attractive and viable. Effective presentations combine clear, convincing technical information with a compelling marketing message—a difficult combination to achieve. And even accurate, convincing presentations can run into trouble if the presenter isn’t prepared for tough questions.

Signal processing applications are becoming more complicated, and so are the processors that run them. As a result, application developers rely on compilers and other tools more heavily than ever. This has made tools a decisive factor in processor-selection decisions. Indeed, differences in tools are a central consideration when choosing between a digital signal processor (DSP) and a general-purpose processor (GPP).

As digital signal processing finds its way into an ever-broader range of applications, processors that were not designed with signal-processing applications in mind are often called upon to perform substantial signal-processing tasks. At the same time, DSP processors are taking on new types of tasks—for example, processors designed for audio applications often must handle video as well. Often, the best way for a processor vendor to meet these expanding, evolving signal processing requirements is to design a new processor.

At September’s Intel Developer Forum, Intel President and COO Paul Otellini gave a keynote speech that lacked the usual obsession with clock speed. Instead, Mr. Otellini’s speech focused on issues like parallelism, integration, and power consumption. What struck me about this change in emphasis is that Intel now seems to be reading from an embedded processor vendor’s playbook.

Special Requirements of Automotive Signal Processing

Twenty years ago, automobiles had very few electronic features. Today, nearly every vehicle relies on thousands of electronic components. Although annual growth in worldwide vehicle sales is relatively slow (roughly 3%), there is explosive growth in automotive electronics applications. By 2010, it is estimated that nearly 40% of a vehicle's total value will be attributed to its electronics (see Figure 1) and much of the electronics will be used for some form of signal processing.