ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses research on event-based, continuous-time (CT) signal acquisition and digital signal processing. It reviews techniques in which uniform sampling is abandoned, with samples generated and processed instead only when there is an input event, thus causing dynamic energy use only when demanded by the information in the signal. Event-based systems can place demands on the accuracy with which the timing of events is recorded and processed. In contrast to conventional data acquisition and digital signal processing, event-based operations offer potential for significant advantages, if the sampling strategy is adapted to the properties of the input signal. A more general-purpose CT digital signal processors (DSP) test chip is based on an entirely new microarchitecture. CT DSPs react immediately to input changes, unlike classical systems which may not catch such changes until the following sampling instant; this makes them especially well suited for use in very fast digital control loops.
