Ok, folks, I did ask a similar question before but that was long ago. Meantime I have read articles such as one about a VoIP phone designed without DSP. Made me wonder: Why were they touting that absence of a DSP?
Anyway, recently I went over the DSP offerings. Again. Not much new stuff to write home about. Prices are still $3 and up for the low end. Power consumption is still high. Some will go down to a few ten uA in sleep or idle (well above what many uCs can do) but then they often must run at 50MHz or higher when awake, meaning lots of milliamps. A modern
1.2V core doesn't make a battery application exactly easy. In the uC world there are powerful ARMs but they do not fare too well either in the consumption domain, often requiring two supply voltages. Then there are "more normal" 16 bitter uC with and without HW multiplier such as the MSP430. Almost ideal in battery apps but very low "real" clock rates when allowing for battery droop, and not that much horsepower to begin with.Where does the trend go? Towards uC?