A co-design methodology for telecommunication systems: A case study of an acoustic echo canceller

The acoustic echo cancellation with large adaptive filters is a computation ally intensive problem and needs real time cost effective solution. To deal with these challenges, designers have increasingly turned to mixed Hardwar e/Software (HW/SW) implementation of echo canceller algorithms. This paper presents a co-design methodology and environment for both hardware and soft ware modules. We describe how High Level Synthesis (HLS) tools like GAUT an d SYNDEX can be efficiently used for rapid prototyping of heterogeneous arc hitecture based on DSP TMS320C4O and ASIC. The HW/SW interface synthesis ta sk is especially discussed since it constitutes a key issue of the whole de sign. As an illustration, we present a mixed implementation of the GMDF alp ha algorithm, an adaptive filter well suited to acoustic echo cancellation, on both ASIC and TMS320C40 DSP.