Experience with image compression chip design using unified system construction tools

Abstract

{ This paper describes the use of Unied System Construction tools under development at the University of Southern California. The goal of the project is to automate the construction of heterogeneous, applicationspecic systems. Key elements of the USC system include multiprocessor synthesis, multi-chip datapath synthesis, memory-intensive synthesis, and multi-chip partitioning. The tools were applied to design of an image compression chip set, and results of using these tools are reported on here. Our results are c omparable to manual designs reported in the literature.

Functional partitioning improvements over structural partitioning for packaging constraints and synthesis

“…The objects' granularity is that of procedures and variables. Arguments for this granularity, as opposed to finer-granularities such as statements or arithmeticoperations, can be found in Eles et al [1992]; Thomas et al [1993]; Gupta et al [1994];. Techniques in Vahid [1995] can be used to group a procedure's statements into subprocedures when a procedure is too large.…”

Incremental hardware estimation during hardware/software functional partitioning

“…We took advantage of this incremental change by developing a data structure (representing an incrementally modi able design model) and an algorithm that can quickly provide the basic design parameters needed by a hardware-size estimator. As we shall see, we were able to do this by assuming that the granularity at which we partition the speci cation is at the procedural level (sometimes called the process or task level), as is the case in many new functional partitioning techniques 7,8,10,11,12,13,14,15]. Our contribution is the development of this incremental hardware-size estimation method, consisting of a new data structure and algorithm, that achieves the advantages of both classes of previous approaches, namely accuracy and speed.…”

SLIF: a specification-level intermediate format for system design

“…The need for coarse-grained procedural-level partitioning was stressed in [2], as well as in [3,4]. Approaches in [5,6,7] partition at the ner-grained statement level (or statement sequence).…”