Martijn J. Rutten

A heterogeneous multiprocessor architecture for flexible media processing

Eclipse is a scalable architecture template for designing data-dependent stream-processing subsystems of media-processing SoCs. It combines application configuration flexibility with the efficiency of function-specific coprocessors that concurrently execute the tasks of one or more applications.

Design of multi-tasking coprocessor control for Eclipse

Eclipse defines a heterogeneous multiprocessor architecture template for data-dependent stream processing. Intended as a scalable and flexible subsystem of forthcoming media-processing systems-on-a-chip, Eclipse combines application configuration flexibility with the efficiency of function-specific hardware, or coprocessors. To facilitate reuse, Eclipse separates coprocessor functionality from generic support that addresses multi-tasking, inter-task synchronization, and data transport. Five interface primitives accomplish this separation. The interface facilitates the design of coprocessors that require complex control to handle data-dependent I/O, saving/restoring task state upon task switches, and pipelined processing. This paper presents how this interface enables the design of such reusable yet cost-effective coprocessors.

Robust media processing in a flexible and cost-effective network of multi-tasking coprocessors

Eclipse defines a heterogeneous multiprocessor architecture for high-performance streaming media as a subsystem of a system-on-silicon platform for the consumer electronics market. The scalable architecture template supports multiple function-specific coprocessors that operate in parallel and independently. Each coprocessor is multi-tasking, allowing multiple applications to proceed concurrently. Eclipse instances combine application configuration flexibility with the efficiency of function-specific hardware. The Eclipse template introduces novel hardware units, called shells, dedicated to each coprocessor. The combination of limited available buffer memory and high data-bandwidth causes high task-switch rates and synchronization rates, necessitating full support by the shell. Thereto, each shell implements a task scheduler and a transport synchronization unit. The task scheduler is designed for a dynamic workload environment with guarantees for minimum resource budgets, and achieves online task selection within 10 clock cycles.

Application design trajectory towards reusable coprocessors - MPEG case study

This work presents a structured application design trajectory to transform media-processing applications - modeled as Kahn process network - into a set of function-specific hardware units called coprocessors. The proposed design trajectory focuses on identifying hardware-implementable computation kernels that are common for a predetermined set of applications. The design trajectory is exercised in a case study that maps MPEG video decoding and encoding applications onto a set of coprocessors in a heterogeneous multiprocessor architecture. The resulting set of coprocessors can simultaneously perform both encoding and decoding functions for multiple MPEG-2 streams in an estimated 4 mm/sup 2/ (excluding memory) in 0.18 /spl mu/ technology.