In today’s digital world, devices from smart speakers to wearable health tech demand reliable, flexible, high-performance digital signal processing (DSP). But designing full DSP systems often involves juggling specialised hardware, complex integrations, trade-offs between latency, power and cost — and long development cycles.
Enter xcore.ai , XMOS’s answer to these challenges. With it, you can now build entire DSP systems in software alone, bringing together DSP workloads, I/O, control logic — even AI — without the complexity of stitching together multiple discrete chips.
Why xcore.ai wins for DSP
Here are the key pillars that make xcore.ai stand out:
Flexibility
Whether you’re processing in fixed-point or floating point, you’ll get the flexibility to integrate I/O protocols, control algorithms, AI models — all within a single software-defined platform. That reduces the bill of materials and simplifies the hardware design.
Predictable Programmability
The architecture is multi-threaded, multicore, with deterministic behaviour. For applications that require hard real-time performance — multiple sample rates, tight timing, low latency — this matters. xcore.ai ensures that different parts of the system don’t interfere with each other.
Feature-Rich Capabilities
Each xcore.ai device has:
– 16 hardware threads (HART) across two processor tiles
– 512 kB SRAM per tile
– An integer vector unit capable of efficient block floating point operations
All of this resides inside a single homogeneous development environment.
What about performance?
Here’s what xcore.ai delivers:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Sustained FLOPS | ~800 MFLOPS |
| Peak FLOPS | ~1,600 MFLOPS |
| FFT throughput | ~98,561 FFTs/sec (fixed point), ~11,300 float FFTs/sec |
| FIR filter performance | ~957 million taps/sec |
| IIR filters (per biquad) | ~251 million/sec |
If your DSP needs scale beyond what one chip can handle, XMOS also supports multi-chip systems via dedicated links.
Embedded DSP tools & ready-to use functions
Beyond the raw specs, what often slows projects down is building out the standard DSP building blocks from scratch. XMOS alleviates this by offering:
- A library of fundamental DSP building blocks
- High-level reference applications: PDM interfaces, acoustic echo cancellation, noise suppression, asynchronous sample-rate conversion, automatic gain control, and more
- Modifiable, extendable codebases so you can tailor to your specific system or interface needs — all within one cost-efficient, embedded solution.
Where xcore.ai shines
This platform is perfect for many use cases including:
- Personal electronics & smart home devices
- Computer peripherals
- Gaming & immersive audio
- Home theatre / audio systems
- Communications gear
- Wearables
- Industrial & automotive sectors (pro-audio, motor control, infotainment…)
Whatever the domain, if your product needs real-time DSP, low latency, flexibility, and cost-efficient hardware, xcore.ai is worth a close look.
Getting started
Whether you’re evaluating DSP architectures or starting your next embedded project:
Consider how single-chip vs multi-chip scaling matches your performance needs and cost constraints.
Explore XMOS’s Application Notes to see what you can adapt.
Take a look at the XMOS developer tools — ramp-up is smoother when you can build from working templates.
