What is DSP?

DSP, or Digital Signal Processing, as the term suggests, is the processing of signals by digital means. A signal in this context can mean a number of different things. Historically the origins of signal processing are in electrical engineering, and a signal here means an electrical signal carried by a wire or telephone line, or perhaps by a radio wave. More generally, however, a signal is a stream of information representing anything from stock prices to data from a remote-sensing satellite. The term "digital" comes from "digit", meaning a number (you count with your fingers - your digits), so "digital" literally means numerical; the French word for digital is numerique. A digital signal consists of a stream of numbers, usually (but not necessarily) in binary form. The processing of a digital signal is done by performing numerical calculations.