This paper focuses on the DSP implementation of an HMM-based speech recognizer that can handle several hundred words of vocabulary size as well as speaker independency. First, we develop an HMM-based speech recognition system on the PC that operates on the frame basis with parallel processing of feature extraction and Viterbi decoding to make the processing delay as small as possible. Many techniques such as linear discriminant analysis, state-based Gaussian selection, and phonetic tied mixture model are employed for reduction of computational burden and memory size. The system is then properly optimized and compiled on the TMS320C6711 DSP for real-time operation. The implemented system uses 486kbytes of memory for data and acoustic models, and 24.5 kbytes for program code. Maximum required time of 29.2 ms for processing a frame of 32 ms of speech validates real-time operation of the implemented system.