A four-processor building block for SIMD processor arrays

Author

Fisher, Allan L. ; Highnam, Peter T. ; Rockoff, Todd E.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Comput. Sci., Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Volume

25

Issue

2

fYear

1990

fDate

4/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

369

Lastpage

375

Abstract

A four-processor chip, for use in processor arrays for image computations, is described. The large degree of data parallelism available in image computations allows dense array implementations where all processors operate under the control of a single instruction stream. An instruction decoder shared by the four processors on the chip minimizes the pin count allocated for global control of the processors. The chip incorporates an interface to an external SRAM (static RAM) for memory expansion without glue chips. The full-custom 2-μm CMOS chip contains 56669 transistors and runs instructions at 10 MHz. Five hundred and twelve 16-b processors and 4 Mbyte of distributed external memory fit on two industry standard cards to yield 5-billion instructions per second peak throughout. As image I/O can overlap perfectly with pixel computation, an array containing 128 of these chips can provide more than 600 16-b operations per pixel on 512×512 images at 30 Hz

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; VLSI; computerised picture processing; parallel processing; 10 MHz; 16 bit; 2 micron; 262144 pixel; 30 Hz; 4 Mbyte; 5 GIPS; 512 pixel; CMOS chip; SIMD processor arrays; VLSI; data parallelism; dense array implementations; distributed external memory; external SRAM; four-processor building block; four-processor chip; image I/O; image computations; industry standard cards; instruction decoder; memory expansion; pin count minimisation; pixel computation; processor arrays; static RAM; Broadcasting; Concurrent computing; Control systems; Costs; Decoding; Image processing; Pins; Pixel; Process control; Random access memory;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/4.52158

Filename

52158