A real-world approach to benchmarking DSP real-time operating systems

Traditionally, DSPs have been used as coprocessors to offload host controllers of compute-intensive math and signal processing functions. Increasingly though, designers are seeking to increase efficiency by migrating larger and larger portions of their applications to the DSP, sometimes eliminating the host controller altogether. The result has been an explosion in DSP application complexity, creating a need for programming tools that simplify the development process. One way that designers can speed application development and enhance the reliability, maintainability, and portability of their production code is to enlist the services of a real-time operating system. An RTOS's multitasking framework makes it easy for designers to quickly and intuitively partition their application code into manageable subunits. The paper discusses benchmarking considerations, context switching, interrupt processing, multiprocessing and data streaming.