Data-path synthesis of VLIW video signal processors

This paper describes a methodology for synthesizing the data-path of a Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) based Video Signal Processor (VSP). Offering both performance and programmability, VSPs are important for their roles in digital video applications, which are omnipresent in today's world. Among many different architectures, VLIW is becoming increasingly popular and widely used due to its efficiency in exploiting high degree of parallelism inherent in multimedia applications. While architectural syntheses of embedded systems have been studied in depth, little literature has addressed similar issues for VLIW-based VSPs. Using an MPEG-2 video encoder as a case study, in this paper we present a combined application of trace-driven simulation and performance estimation in the data-path synthesis of a VLIW VSP. Results show that our estimations are quite precise and helpful, let alone that they are orders of magnitude faster than simulation.