ABSTRACT
Signal processing is simply the manipulation of the properties of a specific signal to obtain a signal with more desirable properties. Properties such as amplitude, phase, or frequency spectrum may be altered to meet a specific requirement. In order to process signal variables that are continuous with time using software the variables have to be converted to the correct format; normally a sequence of numbers. A system can be classified as analog, discrete-time or digital systems depending on the type of signals they handle. Many natural phenomena produce analog signals and signal processors are inherently digital systems. Many ADCs available in the market also contain the sample and hold circuit in the same integrated circuit. Discrete-time signals are a set of numbers or sequences formed from a set of samples taken from an analog signal or they may be words taken from digital binary data.
