An automatic tool for the static distribution of actors in RVC-CAL based multicore designs

The Open RVC CAL compiler infrastructure allows the definition and simulation of complex algorithms as a set of interconnected dataflow actors using the RVC-CAL actor language as well as the automatic generation of C code for a number of target processors, like ARM or x86 based cores. Though code for multicore processors may also be generated, mapping among actors and cores is carried out by hand. With complex algorithms, usually described with tens of actors, this mapping procedure requires expertise and a deep knowledge of the algorithms. In this paper, an automatic tool to assist in the actor-core mapping for multicore systems designed using the Orce infrastructure is presented. The new tool automatically explores all possible mappings by simulation and recommends the most efficient in terms of speed. The tool has been tested with two complex video decoding algorithms (H.264 and HEVC). The tests show that the automatic tool obtains good results compared with those obtained by an expert designer.