The heart of the software defined radios rests in the digital signal processing units.

Digital signal processing can be done on general-purpose microprocessors. However, a DSP contains architectural optimizations to speed up processing. These optimizations are also important to lower costs, heat-emission and power-consumption.

DSPs often use special memory architectures that are able to fetch multiple data and/or instructions at the same time.

Most DSPs use fixed-point arithmetic, because in real world signal processing, the additional range provided by floating point is not needed, and there is a large speed benefit and cost benefit due to reduced hardware complexity. Floating point DSPs may be invaluable in applications where a wide dynamic range is required but it is generally easier to implement algorithms in floating point.

Embedded general-purpose RISC processors are becoming increasingly DSP in functionality. For example, ARM.

Generally, DSPs are dedicated integrated circuits, however DSP functionality can also be realized using FPGAs.

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