Analog Signal Processing vs Digital Signal Processing-difference between Analog Signal Processing and Digital Signal Processing

This page compares analog signal processing vs digital signal processing and mentions difference between analog signal processing and digital signal processing.

Analog Signal Processing

Analog Signal Processing

ASP (Analog signal processing) processes the signals which are not digitized. The examples of ASP systems include classical radio, TV, telephone, radar etc.

Following are examples of non linear circuits which use ASP concept.
• Compandors
• Multiplicators which use mixers/voltage controlled amplifiers
• voltage controlled oscillators
• voltage controlled filters
• PLLs (Phase Locked Loops)

Here processing is applied on analog signal directly and does require any ADC or DAC unlike digital signal processing.

Digital Signal Processing

Digital Signal Processing

DSP processes discrete time discrete amplitude signals which are samples at discrete points in time. The most popular DSP chip is from texas instruments which is TMS320. The other DSP manufacturers include freescale, Intel, CEVA, XILINX etc.

As shown in the figure-2, A/D converter is used to convert analog signal to digital signal before applying to DSP module. After the Digital Signal Processing, digital signal is converted back to analog form using appropriate D/A converter as per requirements/applications.

Typical applications of DSP include up/down sampling, filtering, image processing, audio processing, fourier transform, compression, acquisition, correlation/convolution, ECG in medical domain, radar etc. Refer DSP Architecture>> for more information on inside of DSP.

DSP Related LINKS

DSP-FPGA evaluation boards
DSP Chip vendors/manufacturers
what is DSP

What is Difference between

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OFDM vs OFDMA
CDMA vs GSM
Bluetooth vs zigbee
Fixed wimax vs mobile

RF and Wireless Terminologies