A VLSI-Based I/O Formatting Device

At the present time substantial software, memory, and CPU cycle penalties are incurred in bridging the semantic gap between high-level language formatted output statements and I/O device capabilities. Because of this gap and in response to the rapidly expanding capability of VLSI microelectronic circuits, a dedicated I/O processor is proposed to off-load the inherent conversion and formatting task from the host computer. The research reported here investigated the feasibility, the architectural requirements, and the implementational considerations of a regular design methodology for a VLSI-based I/O formatter.