Visual image processing RAM for fast 2-D data location search

Visual Image Processing RAM (VIP-RAM) for fast 2-D data location search is proposed and implemented. It finds the local maximum location of 3×3 size window in single cycle latency using hierarchical 3-bank architecture. Each bank searches intermediate maximum from 3 32-bit data in a row, and top-level logic deduces the final maximum out of 3 32-bit data from 3 banks. Each memory bank includes special logic for 3 consecutive data read and 32-bit 3 input comparator. 8 VIP-RAMS are integrated in multi-core object recognition SoC and fabricated in 0.18μm process. VIP-RAM is measured to operate at 200MHz for 8.2 GOPS peak performance.