Michael Watterson wrote:
> I'd not regard the dsPIC as a useful DSP platform at all.

That's a rather limited view.  The dsPIC can do single cycle
multiply-accumulates into a wide accumulator, which qualifies it as "DSP".
To be sure it's not high end, but neither is the price.  There are certainly
embedded DSP problems a dsPIC can address.  At 30M multiply-accumulates per
second, a 30F can get some useful DSP work done.  That's a 3000 point
convolution on a 10KHz sample stream, for example.  A 33F can run even
faster.  To put this in perspective, that means you can realize just about
any linear filter you can dream up for a voice stream.

> Microchip
> have even claimed the 18Fxxxx is a DSP chip simply because it has an
> 8x8
> HW multiplier.

I have not seen such a claim, and I think you're wrong.  I have seen them
show clever ways of using the 18F multiplier to do some limited DSP
operations, but that's very different from claiming the 18F is a DSP.  It's
clearly not, and I haven't seen Microchip claim otherwise.


********************************************************************
Embed Inc, Littleton Massachusetts, http://www.embedinc.com/products
(978) 742-9014.  Gold level PIC consultants since 2000.
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist