Video Processing Requirements on SoC Infrastructures

Applications from the embedded consumer domain put challenging requirements on SoC infrastructures, i.e. interconnect and memory. Specifically, video applications demand large storage capacity and high bandwidth while data accesses can be irregular. The SoC architectures used for implementing these applications typically contain a heterogeneous collection of processing elements and use a single interface to off-chip DRAM in order to provide the required storage capacity at a low cost. Proper integration of interconnect and memory architecture is required to achieve the required bandwidths and latencies for accessing memory. The application requirements as well as the characteristics and constraints for accessing memory are key inputs for NoC design. Future memory technologies may cause a paradigm shift by offering high-bandwidth memory access, possibly via multiple memory interfaces.