Eclipse : Flexible Media Processing in a Heterogeneous Multiprocessor Template

Abstract

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Acknowledgmentith this thesis, I stand on the shoulders of two remarkable architects, Evert-Jan Pol and Jos van Eijndhoven. Ever so often, I would study a certain aspect of the architecture. Typically, when I proudly presented my solution after careful consideration of all options, Evert-Jan would politely point out to me that I had overlooked a detail that rendered my solution utterly useless. However, my ideas triggered him to change one detail and invent the final solution, letting me wonder why I couldn't have come up with that. Next, Jos van Eijndhoven would pass by as an interested onlooker and within minutes sketch a highly innovative implementation on the white board. Jos and Evert-Jan: a very special thanks for all the support, coaching, and friendship. Evert-Jan, I am extremely grateful for all the architecting experience you taught me over the many years we worked together, and particularly for helping me to reverse engineer the design decisions in the EDDI use cases after a few years. W Clearly, this thesis builds on the work of many other researchers: Egbert Jaspers and Erik van der Tol, showing me what MPEG-2 really means; Pieter van der Wolf-who was one of the first to stress that Eclipse had a value far beyond a TriMedia accelerator. Pieter, thanks for teaching me how to properly structure a document and for all the last-minute reviewing of Eclipse papers, typically a few hours before the submission deadline. Thanks to John Moors, struggling to decrypt my coprocessor shell design document during RTL implementation. Karel Walters, your enthusiasm and skill in developing the Eclipse control software was inspiring! I will never forget the enthusiasm of the Semiconductors and Research teams in India. Ferry, thanks for all the times you rescued me from spending all weekend typing on my thesis in Bangalore! My gratitude goes out to Bob Hertzberger for supporting this thesis since 2002. Jacqueline, thank you for your help and support during these years! I am deeply indebted to my parents for virtually everything, with a special thanks to my father for reviewing and kayaking with me whenever it's too cold to stay home. Last but not least, a huge thanks to Katrien, Open Office guru Andrei, Jaap, Maca, Nanni, Enith, Giuseppe, Loes, Wouter, Joep, Joost, Csaba, Thibaut, Alex, Vedran, Andreja, Mathias, Clara, and Jaques for always asking when I would finally finish my thesis and at the same time inviting me to do other fun things… viii Acknowledgment I will never have enough pages to thank you, Derya, for being so sweet despite all the time I spent behind my laptop and left you alone…tatlı karıcım, sevgin ve desteğin için çok teşekkurler!