The LEA is a hardware engine designed for operations that involve vector-based signal processing, such as FIR, IIR, and FFT. The LEA offers fast performance and low energy consumption when performing vector-based digital signal processing computations. For performance benchmarks comparing LEA to using the CPU or other processors, see Benchmarking the Signal-Processing Capabilities of the Low-Energy Accelerator.

The LEA requires MCLK to be operational; therefore, LEA runs only in active mode or LPM0. While the LEA is running, the LEA data operations are performed on a shared 8KB of RAM out of the 12KB of total RAM (see Table 9-52). This shared RAM can also be used by the regular application. The MSP CPU and the LEA can run simultaneously and independently unless they access the same system RAM.

Direct access to LEA registers is not supported, and TI recommends using the optimized Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Library for MSP Microcontrollers for the operations that the LEA module supports.