A micro-grained VLSI signal processor
M.J. Irwin, Robert Michael Owens · 1992
A very-fine-grain, VLSI processor is described. Very-fine-grain VLSI processors are especially suited for problems with a high degree of parallelism. However, to maintain their fine grainness (i.e., small size) most fine grain processors are relatively inflexible. Attempts to increase flexibility usually increase processor complexity and, thereby, decreases grainness. The two-dimensional, micrograined processor maintains both a high degree of flexibility and fine grainness by reducing each processing cell to a small RAM and several multiplexers. For even greater speed, arithmetic operations are based on a redundant number representation. Algorithms for single-instruction multiple-data (SIMD), mesh architectures can be easily adapted for the micrograined processor. This is particularly true for algorithms for certain two-dimensional signal and image processing problems.>