A processor-coprocessor architecture for high end video applications

High end video applications are still implemented in hardware consisting of many components. Integration of these components on one IC is difficult as they are typically low volume products and often customization is also required, e.g. in studio applications. This is easier on the board level than on an integrated system. Using hardware parameters for customization can partly overcome the flexibility problem with additional hardware costs. Low cost can be obtained by a change in the architecture paradigm to a processor-coprocessor system. This, however, requires careful design space exploration since the performance target is beyond current DSP processors while at the same time flexibility is required. The paper presents the application of high level synthesis (D.D. Gajski et al., 1992) and novel hardware-software cosynthesis tools to design space exploration. It is shown that completely different algorithms can be mapped to the same target system at a much lower cost than the current approaches.