Recent Developments in Configurable and Extensible Processors

There have been some interesting technology developments in the area of configurable and extensible processors in the last few years. This paper outlines some of the most recent technologies that we have been developing at Tensilica, including the role of fixed implementations, automatic generation of application-oriented configurations, and design methodologies including fast functional simulation. It also discusses some of our future evolution n particular, the move from a single processor focus to a multi-processor SoC (MPSoC) focus. We conclude by outlining some of the research problems that we find of most interest