Optimizing loop performance for clustered VLIW architectures
Qian Yi, Steve Carr, Philip H. Sweany · 2002
Modern embedded systems often require high degrees of instruction-level parallelism (ILP) within strict constraints on power consumption and chip cost. Unfortunately, a high-performance embedded processor with high ILP generally puts large demands on register resources, making it difficult to maintain a single, multi-ported register bank. To address this problem, some architectures, e.g. the Texas Instruments TMS320C6x, partition the register bank into multiple banks that are each directly connected only to a subset of functional units. These functional unit/register bank groups are called clusters.