I am often asked to explain why FPGAs are so often linked with the term DSP. Very often it turns out that the person asking the question is confused by the fact that the abbreviation "DSP" has two meanings -- "Digital Signal Processing" (the act itself) and "Digital Signal Processor" (a special-purpose device intended to perform the act of digital signal processing).
The big point to wrap one's brain around is that you don't actually need a digital signal processor to perform digital signal processing (this statement assumes we all agree on what we mean by "digital signal processor," of course).
Analog signal processing (ASP)
Before we leap into the concept of digital signal processing, let's first remind ourselves that the real world is predominantly an analog realm. We also need to remind ourselves that we can create electronic circuits and systems that operate in an analog or digital fashion.
In the context of electronics, an analog device or system is one that uses continuously variable signals to represent information for input, processing, output, and so forth. On this basis, analog signal processing (ASP) involves the processing of signals in the analog domain. Consider the simple ASP system shown in the following block diagram:
Simple analog signal processing (ASP) scenario.
Here we see a sine wave from a guitar being fed into a voltage-controlled amplifier. The amount of amplification is controlled by a lower frequency sine wave coming from a signal generator.
In the early days of electronics, systems were predominantly analog in nature. This was due to a number of reasons, including the fact that electronic components used to be expensive and you can do a lot of processing with relatively few components in the analog domain, so long as that processing is relatively simple. Another consideration is that digital concepts were not well understood in the early days of electronics.
Max, it's like my nature, I would like to read books but limited only to comics and journals/periodicals. Similarly, I would like to learn new technologies, other than related to my routine technological works. In contrast I can say I would like very thing other than related to my works (Grin)
Max Maxfield 9/13/2012 9:52:12 AM User Rank Blogger
Re: Tolerance, Drift and Aging
@Myplanet: "how long you want to continue with this learning process."
As long as I enjoy it I guess -- I love learning about technology -- I think my advantage now is that I mostly get to learn interesting "big picture" stuff rather than boring nitty-gritty detailed stuff
Max, how long you want to continue with this learning process. Since am working with R&D, I had fed up with this learning process, every day new technology, process and new areas of research. Am seriously thinking about taking a 2-3 months leave for complete mental and physical rest. But I know, after the vacation I may become a big zero in industry because of the rapid growth of technology.
Max Maxfield 9/11/2012 9:38:30 AM User Rank Blogger
Re: Tolerance, Drift and Aging
@Myplanet: I agree -- I am always learning new stuff and when I do learn something new I'm always happy about it (well, technical stuff ... not if I learn that someone thinks I'm an idiot :-)
Max, learning is a continuous process and you can continue as long as you wish to work. We are starting our learning process from the time of babysitting to till our death. After my college days, when I started my career, I though the learning process are over and there after I have to apply the knowledge. But I found that through my college I had captured only a minor part of the knowledge and even the CEO/ED of my company are still in learning process.
Geekyasa, I don't think everything. Ofcource the unexpected things are from the vision of brilliant script writers. But other common things are from our own native scientists and engineers.
Very true Myplant but dont you think becasue of those scientific novels only we got the ideas of creating these technically savvy gadgets ? I feel we should thank the script writers of those scientifi movies and TV series for helping us to get some crazy but novel ideas.
Max Maxfield 9/4/2012 10:36:35 AM User Rank Blogger
Re: Tolerance, Drift and Aging
@geekyasa: I don't know if it's just a case of me being nostalgic, but I think there was a big advantage to learning things like computer programming when I did -- when the size of available memory as so limited and processor clock speeds were so low -- because it forced you to hone youe code and to learn cunning tricks and you really had to understand what the processor was doing with your code.
Similarly, there was an advantage to learning digital logic when I did -- before synthesis and suchlike -- when we designed with gates and registers -- because again we swapped tips and tricks on how to create smaller, faster, more efficient logic functions...
Max Maxfield 9/4/2012 10:32:05 AM User Rank Blogger
Re: Tolerance, Drift and Aging
@Bill: There's a brilliant website called Lindsay's Technical Books were they reprint books that are out of copyright. I recommend that everyone should send off for their catalog. They have books on building your own "stuff" like electromagnets -- or bending/working with sheet metal ... wonderful stuff...
Geekyasa, now most of the advanced technology imaginations and visualizations are coming from science fiction novelists and script writers. Once the novel or movie is ready, scientists and engineers start working from that visualization points. The one reason, why scientists are lagging for imagination is, they are always in reality world with other experiments. So they won't get enough time to think in other directions.
We consider complementary versus analogous colors and the meaning of terms like shade, tint, and hue. We also introduce the concept of psychological primary colors.
The appellation "primary colors" refers to a small collection of colors that can be combined to form a range of additional colors, but which "small collection of colors" should we use as our primaries?
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