A scalable and flexible data synchronization scheme for embedded HW-SW shared-memory systems

This paper describes the implementation of a data-synchronization scheme that can be used in the functional description and hardware realization of algorithms for heterogeneous multiprocessor architectures. In this scheme, synchronization primitives are chosen such that they can be implemented efficiently in both hardware and software on distributed shared memory architectures, without the need for atomic semaphore instructions. The proposed solution is flexible as the configuration of the data synchronization is programmable even after a hardware realization. It is also scalable since it can be implemented without the need for central resources. We show with experiments that distributed implementations are needed for scalable and high performance systems-on-a-chip.