An approach for quantitative analysis of application-specific dataflow architectures

Abstract

In this paper we present an approach for quantitative analysis of application-specific dataflow architectures. The approach allows the designer to rate design alternatives in a quantitative 1: IntroductionIn the application domain of real-time video, the required processing power is in the order of hundreds of Risc-like operations per pixel, while the data rate of pixel streams is in the range of 10 to 100 Msamples per second. Consequently architectures are needed that perform billions of operations per second and have an internal communication bandwidth of Gbytes per second.In the application domain of real-time video we focus on dedicated architectures that support the concept of streams [17] and achieve the required performance by exploiting the inherent parallelism of the applications on domain-specific, coarse-grain processors, with limited internal flexibility (i.e. weakly programmable). An example of such a domain-specific architecture is given in figure 1. The architecture consists of different dedicated application-specific coarse-grain processors that operate independently of each other on data-streams. These streams are exchanged between the coarse-grain processors via a communication network and is controlled by some global controller. These kinds of architectures are typically embedded in a larger system that also contains memory and a general purpose processor, e.g. a Risc processor.In the design of these architectures, many choices have to be made. In this paper we present a simulation environment that aids the designer in making these choices based on quantitative information. In section 2 we present our problem statement. A solution approach is given in section 3. In section 4 we review related work of quantitative evaluation of design alternatives. The solution approach is further detailed for application-specific dataflow architectures in the following sections. In

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