PSM: an object-oriented synthesis approach to multiprocessor systemdesign

摘要

Although multiprocessor systems are becoming a trend today, fewnsynthesis tools currently available can actually automate the design ofnmultiprocessor systems. Performance synthesis methodology (PSM) is annobject-oriented system-level synthesis approach to multiprocessor systemndesign. Since PSM was designed specifically for the synthesis ofnmultiprocessor systems, it is not only much more efficient whennsynthesizing parallel systems, but also produces better parallel systemsnthan currently available uniprocessor system-level synthesis tools.nColored Petri nets used in modeling system components and objectnmodeling technique used in the design process have both contributed tonthe shortening of system development time and to the reduction of designncost. First, user specification consisting of functional models andnperformance constraints is translated into architecture models. Then,nthe system is configured by selecting the method of control, the memorynorganization, the type of processor, and the type of systemninterconnection. Finally, a heuristic design space exploration algorithmnis used to generate several near-optimal design alternatives. The bestnarchitecture is chosen by evaluating the design alternatives using anflexible performance estimation formula that mainly considers systemnlevel design features, such as system throughput, utilization,nreliability, scalability, fault-tolerance, and cost. Several systemsnwere successfully synthesized using this top-down object-oriented PSM,nthus showing its feasibility as a design automation tool for parallelnsystems