MediaMem: A dynamically adjustable memory subsystem for high-bandwidth required multimedia SoC systems

Since the continuously growing of multimedia functionalities in modern portable consuming electronics, the computer systems have to integrate multiple media processors on single chip/system to provide better service. However, the insufficient bandwidth of the memory subsystem will make the performance of the multimedia modules unsatisfied. In this paper, we propose an innovative architecture of memory subsystem, aiming for extracting more potential bandwidth of memory access to fulfill the requirements of multiple multimedia processors dynamically. The proposed architecture, called MediaMem, can offers satisfied bandwidth for all attached multimedia processor by proposed two novel scheduling mechanisms that can dynamically adjust the access grants, buffer sizes, and transfer sequences according to real-time situations. Additionally, the memory interconnection is modified to avoid bus contention. The proposed MediaMem architecture has been implemented by SystemC HDL. The whole system functional verification and performance evaluation have been exam by CoWare ConvergenSC. The experimental results are also discussed.