In his keynote address at the DSP World conference in San Jose, John Scarisbrick, a vice
president at Texas Instruments, proclaimed this the “era of the DSP.” If that’s so, why does the
title of this serial predict the death of the DSP? Perhaps we’re both correct, but John and I seem to
be at odds on this one, so an explanation is in order. To resolve the dilemma, we’ll need some
tools. I’ll begin with an overview of the embedded systems market. I’ll use a simple taxonomy
I’ve derived to help with the analysis of embedded systems applications. I’ll go from there to a
short description of design methods and what they mean for the applications. With those pieces,
we’ll be ready to analyze the future of the embedded systems market. With the tools and analysis,
I should be able to convince you that the long-term prospect for DSPs doesn’t look good.