VLSI issues in memory-system design for video signal processors

This paper addresses the design of memory-system architectures for video signal processors. The memory subsystem is the bottleneck of most video computing systems and demands a careful analysis of the design tradeoffs related to area, cycle time, and utilization. We emphasize the need to consider technological and circuit-level issues during the design of a system architecture, particularly that of a video processor, and present a method whereby the conceptual organization of the memory architecture can be evaluated before a detailed design is undertaken. Our analysis suggests that the organization of an efficient memory hierarchy for video signal processors is different from the register-cache based hierarchy of general-purpose programmable microprocessors.