A linear array parallel image processor: SliM-II

This paper describes architectures and design of a general purpose parallel image processor chip called a SliM-II Image Processor. The chip has a linear array of 64 processing elements (PEs), operates at 30 MHz in the worst case simulation and gives 1.92 GIPS. SIiM-II can greatly reduce the inter-PE communication overhead, due to the idea of sliding that is overlapping inter-PE communication with computation. In contrast to existing array processors, each PE has a multiplier that is quite effective for convolution, template matching, etc. The instruction set can execute an ALU operation, data I/O, and inter-PE communication simultaneously in an instruction cycle. In addition, during the ALU/multiplier operation, SliM-II provides parallel load/store between the register file and on-chip memory as in DSP chips. The bandwidth of data I/O and inter-PE communication increases due to bit-parallel paths. We developed VHDL models and performed logic synthesis using the COMPASS ^TM CAD tool. We used the COMPASS^TM 3.3 V 0.6 μm standard cell library (v8r4.9.1). The total number of transistors is about 1.5 millions. The SliM-II chip is being fabricated at the LG Semiconductor Co,, Ltd. The performance estimation shows a significant improvement for algorithms requiring multiplications compared with existing array processors