Architectural Considerations for Application-Specific Counterflow Pipelines

Application-specific processor design is a promising approach for meeting the performance and cost goals of a system. Application-specific processors are especially promising for embedded systems (e.g., digital cameras, cellular phones, etc.) where a small increase in performance and decrease in cost can have a large impact on a product's viability. Sutherland, Sproull, and Molnar have proposed a new pipeline organization called the Counterflow Pipeline (CFP). This paper evaluates CFP design alternatives and shows that the CFP is an ideal architecture for fast, low-cost design of high-performance processors customized for computation-intensive embedded applications. First, we describe why CFP'sare particularly well-suited to realizing application-specific processors. Second, we describe how a CFP tailored to an application can be constructed automatically. Third, we present measurements that evaluate CFP design trade-offs and show that CFP's provide speculative and out-...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1999
• Where: ARVLSI
• Authors: Bruce R. Childers, Jack W. Davidson
• Keywords: Application-specific Processors, ARVLSI 1999, CFP Design, CFP Design Alternatives, VLSI