1 - So you want to be a DSP architect?

Statement
A DSP (*) combine the skills of CA, the byzantine expertise of FXP,  the beauties of Algorithmic Design and the complexity of signal processing... so it is a good place for a buddying architect.
We believe the above statement to be true, but for reasons that you do not see in the usual litterature.

Background
First the bad news
Originated at the end of the 70s, and having gone through multiple phases, the 2015 DSP (and DSP architect) is dead!

1. Firstly because it is very difficult to come up with something else than the CPU model in the software world. In fact among the hundred of attempts, only DSP had a successful run (30 years+) which unfortunately is coming to an end.
2. Secondly, for the last 15 years "SOC platforms"  have taken over from GP DSP or GP CPU as the mainstream chip. In this situation, the quality of the DSP or CPU core does not matter so much; all the specific IP blocks, including software will have more impact.
1. Or in effect, the quality of the CPU core is to be as transparent as possible. 
1. Which is another way to say "Software is the killer" 
2. "nobody has ever been fired when choosing ARM ".

Let us consider the standard platform. It will  have a single or dual core ARM, maybe a DSP , many coprocessors and perhaps a DMA so smart that it can be called an I/O processor. Obviously most of the software is running on the ARM which is also taking care of the whole data management. And any programmable processor such as DSP  is an hindrance to the whole programming model. So DSPs (or DSP cores) are slowly but surely disappearing from all platforms.

Now for the good news: 

What direction to take for a DSP architect?

1. Become a full blown CPU architect and say bye bye to DSP.
2. Join the FPGA bandwagon.This seems kind of obvious and a little spartian too.
3. Learn 4G,5G standards, good luck! 
4. Change job. Join Wall Streeeet and the analytics crowd.
5. Fill your specific description here.

Now for the news from hyperspace: 
OR... this is the subject of this blog.You want to be a DSP architect? Plenty of work till 2052!

Let us put it in a few words:

1. As predicted by the experts, customization has taken over parallelism.
2. For a given platform, accels or cops (especially dsp) have grown in numbers and importance.
3. Matlab is the de-facto dsp language
4. From points 1,2,3: Matlab will be used to design dsp accels, cops and any application specific DSP (AS-DSP).
5. From point 3, Matlab has no concept of  CPU (such as a programmable DSP core). Matlab basic concept is to sequence (in order) a series of functions.
6. The implementation of a Matlab function is done through mapping (not compiling). 
1. Today we map a simulink block to a FPGA block. 
2. Tomorrow we will map a a Matlab BB (a function which looks like a hardware BB) to implementation BB (assembler, verilog).
7. This methodology is based on a bottom up approach; developping increasingly complex BBs in M-code 
1. Same as a simulink toolset . 
2. Or the way that TTL parts went from SSI, MSI, LSI. 
8. Considering that the number of BBs needed is in the order of a few Millions, we estimate that this methodology will NOT be available before a long long long time...    

So we better start now ...

(*) Lingo
Accel: Accelerator
BB: Building Block
CA: Computer Architecture
Cop: coprocessor
DSP: a Digital Signal Processor chip (TI 66xx ) or Core (TI C64P, Ceva family)
FXP: Fixed Point

General References
Hot chips
TI web
http://www.iqmagazineonline.com/archived.php...............ARM IQ journal