Host Signal Processing

HSP is a technology that allows the signal processing of a peripheral to be done not by the peripheral itself, but by the system where the peripheral is attached.

Low-cost modems and sound cards (including “on-board” – i.e. embedded on the motherboard – modems and sound cards) use this technology, where the signal processing is not done by the modem or by the sound card, but by the computer processor.

This reduces the peripheral cost, since it doesn’t need to have signal processing circuits. On the other hand, this kind of device reduces the PC performance, since the CPU will have another task to be executed: controlling the HSP peripheral. The performance impact of a HSP peripheral can or cannot be noticed by the user; it will depend on the system configuration.

ACR, AMR and CNR are slot types that allow the installation of HSP devices on the PC.