Implementation of Compute Intensive Algorithms on Software Configurable Processor

TL;DR

This paper discusses implementing compute-intensive algorithms on a software configurable processor, highlighting how custom instructions and vector processing significantly accelerate applications like color space conversion and histogram equalization.

Contribution

It demonstrates the implementation of two compute-intensive algorithms on Stretch's SCP, showcasing the use of extension instructions and vector processing for high throughput.

Findings

Performance gain of over an order of magnitude compared to unaccelerated processors

Effective packing of multiple pixels into vectors for high throughput

Profiling helps identify compute-intensive spots for acceleration

Abstract

Software configurable processors (SCP) implement compute intensive applications very efficiently on the special onchip configurable hardware. The SCP by Stretch Inc. converts the computeheavy algorithms into custom instructions, called extension instructions (EI) which run on the onchip logic. The Processor interleaves the EI's between regular instructions and the onchip hardware executes the algorithm in parallel, accelerating the application. This results in a performance gain of more than order of magnitude over an unaccelerated processor. This paper explains the implementation of two compute intensive algorithms on Stretch SCP, namely (i) colour space conversion and (ii) histogram equalisation. The repeated processing required by these algorithms is made easier by the SCP which allows packing of multiple pixels into a vector. The vector processing makes SCP achieve high throughput. Profiling an application identifies computeintensive spots in the program, which are computed on the onchip hardware by issuing EI's.