Simulation of multiple digital signal processor systems

The high speed needed in solving digital signal processing problems in real time has often given rise to multiple processor hardware designs. Devices such as the TMS32020 digital signal processor possess features designed to support concurrent processing. Progress in this area is currently hampered by the lack of suitable multiprocessor development tools. It is suggested that an incremental approach to multiprocessor development, using several methods of simulating the signal processor, may be used. Two simulation environments specifically for the development and testing of multiple digital signal processor designs are described. Firstly a single processor simulation system where the algorithms which will be performed by other concurrent processors may be executed in a high level language but without any need to simulate the instructions of the other processors. Secondly a multiple TMS32020 digital signal processor system where processors are simulated as several communicating tasks on a host computer using the IBM AIX (UNIX derived) multitasking operating system.