Efficient Compilation for Application Specific Instruction set DSP Processors with Multi-bank Memories

Modern signal processing systems require more and more processing capacity as times goes on. Previously, large increases in speed and power efficiency have come from process technology improvements. However, lately the gain from process improvements have been greatly reduced. Currently, the way forward for high-performance systems is to use specialized hardware and/or parallel designs. Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) have long been used to accelerate the processing of tasks that are too computationally heavy for more general processors. The problem with ASICs is that they are costly to develop and verify, and the product life time can be limited with newer standards. Since they are very specific the applicable domain is very narrow. More general processors are more flexible and can easily adapt to perform the functions of ASIC based designs. However, the generality comes with a performance cost that renders general designs unusable for some tasks. The question then becomes, how general can a processor be while still being power efficient and fast enough for some particular domain? Application Specific Instruction set Processors (ASIPs) are processors that target a specific application domain, and can offer enough performance with power efficiency and silicon cost that is comparable to ASICs. The flexibility allows for the same hardware design to be used over several system designs, and also for multiple functions in the same system, if some functions are not used simultaneously.