Effort and Challenges in Building Embedded Audio DSP Software Across Platforms

Embedded audio DSP development is notoriously time-consuming and complex, especially when firmware needs to be tuned for high-quality audio and reused on multiple hardware platforms or in different form-factors. Those inefficiencies are primarily the result of only a handful of challenges, which are, as yet, poorly addressed by existing tooling. Iteration Cycles: High Cost and Slow Turnaround Developing and tuning audio DSP firmware often requires many iterative cycles of coding, compiling, and testing. Each adjustment to an audio parameter typically means modifying code, rebuilding the firmware, and re-flashing the device, which is time-intensive and hampers quick experimentation. As a result, audio engineers cannot easily perform instantaneous A/B comparisons of different tunings. One industry whitepaper notes that "often, DSP engineers must rebuild and compile code for different sound settings", so by the time an engineer listens to a second or third tuning iteration, they've lost ... Read full article.