Scratchpad Memory Unit in Hybrid Control-flow and Dataflow Architectures

Abstract

Dataflow architectures offer superior performance compared to control-flow architectures under certain conditions. This paper focuses on memory organization of a hybrid control-flow and dataflow architecture which guaranties that memory allocation can be accomplished in a predictable time. Mapping logical addresses into physical ones and accessing local memory in constant time is achieved using special address translation hardware. The memory organization is based on Buddy-system. It allows allocating arbitrary amounts of memory and prefetching data while it is being accessed by control-flow and dataflow hardware.