Application-set driven exploration for custom processor architectures

Abstract

Custom architectures are often adopted as more efficient alternatives to general purpose processors in terms of performance and power. However, the design of such architectures requires experts both in hardware and the application domain. In this paper we propose a method for speeding up the design space exploration. Our method, based on Pareto points, identifies sets of solutions in terms of scalar units and vector units of certain length, fulfilling the throughput constraints for each application in a given set. Architectures can then be selected by combining these solutions, as starting points for a more thorough, model-based evaluation.