Implementation of a digital color copier using a VLIW SIMD architecture

We have developed real-time image processing programs for a digital color copier using TMS320C6416 digital signal processor. The processor is good for realtime image processing because of multiple and packed-data processing functional units. However, it needs careful programming to exploit deep pipelining, multiple functional units and packed-data instructions. To improve the unit utilization ratio, we developed a few techniques, such as pack/unpack reduction, resource maximization and operation reduction, and multi-pixel processing. All the critical functions for the implementation of a digital color copier, which include shading correction, X-zooming, 2D filtering, and vector half-toning, are implemented. It is shown that a 720 MHz C6416 CPU can perform all the real-time processing needed for a 20 PPM (page per minute) 600 DPI A4 size color copier. We used C programming with intrinsic functions and linear assembly programming followed by the assembly optimizer.