Ab st r ac t When FPGA logic circuits are incorporated within a stored-program computer, the result is a machine where the programmer can design both the sofhvare and the hardware that will execute that software. This paper first describes some of the m r e important custom computers, and their potential weakness as DSP implementation platforms. It then describes a new custom computing architecture which is specifically designed for efficient implementation of DSP algorithms. Finally, it

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... s a simple performance comparison of a number of DSP implementation alternatives, and concludes that (i) the new custom computing architecture is worthy of further investigation, and (ii) that custom computers based only on FPGA execution units show little performance improvement over state-of-the art workstations. 164 0-8186-5490-2/94 $03.00 0 1994 IEEE