App Note Abstract: How to Get Started With the DSP/BIOS Kernel

Application Report Abstract

How to Get Started With the DSP/BIOS Kernel

DSP/BIOS™ is TI's real-time embedded kernel for the TMS320C5000™ and TMS320C6000™ digital signal processors (DSPs). Understanding how to build applications using the DSP/BIOS kernel requires adopting a multi-threaded design paradigm that at first seems foreign for new users of DSPs and veteran DSP developers alike. However, once understood, designing DSP/BIOS applications becomes straightforward, and you will find developing applications easier to design, debug, maintain, and extend. A real-time kernel such as DSP/BIOS helps to factor the problem and facilitate a robust design that is easily maintainable.

Traditionally, DSP applications were very simple, typically using a single program loop to manage the required processing. Over time, DSP applications began to require concurrent processing, as applications demanded the DSP to perform more functions. Applications now typically require the DSP to do several things at once and at different rates. In addition, DSP applications typically change over time, requiring support for additional or modified features. Building modern DSP applications using traditional program loop paradigms is very challenging, difficult to maintain, and even more difficult to extend. Using the DSP/BIOS real-time kernel offers developers the foundation to build modern applications from simple to complex multi-threaded and multi-rate applications.

This paper addresses how to get started building DSP applications using the DSP/BIOS kernel. The primary focus is to understand the multi-threaded design approach using DSP/BIOS components. This includes organizing and structuring an application around DSP/BIOS execution threads.

> View the complete PDF document: spra782.pdf, (323 kb)