STM32N6xy: NPU for audio DSP?

[LCE]

Heyho,

I'm not a SW / DSP guy, but I have to help selecting a new MCU.

Mostly we need gigabit ethernet, SAIs / I2S for audio input.

But for some future applications we might need some DSP power for online audio processing, some heavy filtering and FFT stuff.

I wonder if the N6 's NPU can help with that. In all the documentation / ads I mostly see graphics applications.

[LCE]

We might abuse it for fs 400 kHz (8 channels @ 400k / 32 bit -> 102.4Mbps), and / or or a few more channels via I2S, plus other data (~10Mbps).

[DmitryR]

Hi @LCE ,

then I would recommend you to consider using CPU instead of MCU because if you can afford using 32bit ADCs (and subsequently very low-noise PCB design) then a CPU will probably be not too expensive for your project.

Regards,

Dmitry 

[LCE]

Cost is actually not a problem - but manpower for embedded SW.

I think I could mostly handle N6 with my H7 experience, but the MPUs - not so sure, or would take even longer.

Right now it looks like we keep the H7, and keep DSP in the host PC.

[DmitryR]

Hi @LCE ,

STM32 MPUs have Cortex-M core that could be programmed bare-metal just like any MCU. For Cortex-A core you may use ready-to-use Linux that will of course use Ethernet. The only problem you will have in this case is to send data from Cortex-M to Cortex-A core that is not too hard to do. 

For manpower I think you are wrong. The whole world is in crysis so huge number of people (and me too) have lost their jobs. If you have no human resorces at your place you may easily find somebody who will do this job for you at any freelancing platform. 

Regards,

Dmitry