Causal FIR Filters

From Eq.(5.6), we see also that the impulse response is always zero for . Recall from §5.3 that any LTI filter having a zero impulse response prior to time 0 is said to be causal. Thus, a tapped delay line such as that depicted in Fig.5.5 can only implement causal FIR filters. In software, on the other hand, we may easily implement non-causal FIR filters as well, based simply on the definition of convolution.

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About the Author: Julius Orion Smith III
Julius Smith's background is in electrical engineering (BS Rice 1975, PhD Stanford 1983). He is presently Professor of Music and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), teaching courses and pursuing research related to signal processing applied to music and audio systems. See http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ for details.