GASP: A programmable signal processor

GASP is a General Arithmetic Signal Processor originally designed for real time linear predictive speech analysis. A "correlation" or sum of products unit forms the heart of the processor, which employs a dual bus system for arguments. Incorporation of a separate data lookahead memory with eight autoincrementing data pointers reduces argument fetch times. The processor operates on 20 bit words consisting of 16 bits mantissa and 4 bits exponent. Instruction fetch times are minimised by using a 20 bit Cache memory containing microcoded instructions with associated hardware loop counters. This paper describes the design philosophy and gives some ideas of hardware implementation.