Dynamic loop pipelining in data-driven architectures

Data-driven array architectures seem to be important alternatives for coarse-grained reconfigurable computing platforms. Their use has provided performance improvements over microprocessors and shorter programming cycles than FPGA-based platforms. As with other architectures, in data-driven architectures loop pipelining plays an important role to improve performance. Usually this kind of pipelining can be achieved using the dataflow software pipelining technique or other software pipelining approaches. Although performance improvements are achieved, those techniques heavily depend on the insertion of pipelining stages and thus require complex balancing efforts. Furthermore, those techniques statically define the pipelining and do not take fully advantage of the dynamic scheduling attainable by the datadriven concept. This paper presents a novel scheme to pipeline loops in data-driven architectures, orchestrated by a handshaking protocol. Using the new approach, self loop pipelining is...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: CF
• Authors: João M. P. Cardoso
• Keywords: Applied Computing, CF 2005, Loop Pipelining, Pipelining, Software Pipelining