Low power real-time programmable DSP development platform for digital hearing aids

This paper presents a new low power binaural wearable digital hearing aid platform based on the Texas Instruments TMS320C5000 fixed point digital signal processor. This platform is a real-time system capable of processing two input speech channels at a 32 kHz sampling rate for each channel and driving a stereo headphone output. It provides for frequency shaping, suppression, multiband amplitude compression, frequency dependent interaural time delay algorithms. Since the platform is a programmable solution capable of running at 1.8 V for MIPS intensive research and 1 V for actual hearing aid implementation, this platform will enable further research into improving the quality of life for the hearing impaired