If you are searching for an easy solution, why don't you use a Raspberry Pi?. you can use the same computer C code without the need to modify to fit a microcontroller.
The first question is "what would you want to do with that chip ?"
You may want to make an IP that can be sold too.
If you want to sell that ship, you have to analysis your constraints : power and silicon area and interfacing with existing SoC or to extenal component.
These constraints would drive your design.
A complete design space exploration may be required depending on your project goal. This would include ARM based, specific instructions to existing processors (Tensilica Xtensa), to complete dedicated IPs design. High level synthesis could be done on your algorithm (http://hls-labsticc.univ-ubs.fr/html/publication.html (High level synthesis)