YAPI: application modeling for signal processing systems

Abstract

We present a programming interface called YAPI to model signal processing applications as process networks. The purpose of YAPI is to enable the reuse of signal processing applications and the mapping of signal processing applications onto heterogeneous systems that contain hardware and software components. To this end, YAPI separates the concerns of the application programmer, who determines the functionality of the system, and the system designer, who determines the implementation of the functionality. The proposed model of computation extends the existing model of Kahn process networks with channel selection to support non-deterministic events. We provide an efficient implementation of YAPI in the form of a C++ run-time library to execute the applications on a workstation. Subsequently, the applications are used by the system designer as input for mapping and performance analysis in the design of complex signal processing systems. We evaluate this methodology on the design of a digital video broadcast system-on-chip.