Automatic detection of recurring operation patterns

• Published in: Hardware/Software Codesign 1999: Proceedings of the IEEE 7th International Conference pp. 22 - 26
• Main Authors: Arnold, Marnix, Corporaal, Henk
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY, USA ACM 01.03.1999; IEEE
• Series: ACM Conferences
• Subjects: Application software; Computer architecture; Embedded system; Hardware; Hardware > Electronic design automation > Methodologies for EDA; Hardware > Hardware test; Hardware > Integrated circuits > Logic circuits > Arithmetic and datapath circuits; Hardware > Integrated circuits > Logic circuits > Design modules and hierarchy; Laboratories; Libraries; Pattern matching; Permission; Process design; Tree graphs; pattern matching; co-design; instruction set synthesis; design space exploration
• ISBN: 9781581131321; 1581131321
• ISSN: 1092-6100
• DOI: 10.1145/301177.301192

An important problem in the area of processor design for embedded systems is determining the proper instruction set architecture. Trade-offs have to be made between programmability and reusability of dedicated hardware for special functionality on the one hand, and a high performance dedicated instruction set on the other hand. This paper addresses the question of how to find specialized ISA extensions for a set of applications. We describe the application of a new pattern matching technique to the problem of the identification of recurring patterns of operations. By implementing frequently occurring operation patterns in hardware, and using this hardware as special function units, a fine-grained hardware/software partitioning can be found. The fine granularity, and the fact that patterns are taken from a number of different target applications rather than a single one, increase the opportunities for reuse of the special-purpose hardware. We illustrate our technique with experiments on a number of benchmarks from the DSP domain.