This paper proposes a new method to design an optimal pipelined instruction set processor using formal HW/SW codesign methodology. A HW/SW partitioning algorithm for selecting an optimal pipelined architecture is introduced. The codesign task addressed in this paper is to find a set of hardware implemented operations to achieve the highest performance of an ASIP with pipelined architecture under given gate count and power consumption constraints. The problem formalization as well as the proposed algorithm can be considered as an extension of our previous work toward a pipelined architecture. The experimental results show that the proposed method is quite effective and efficient.

This paper describes the current implementation and experimental results of a hardware/software codesign system for ASIP (Application Specific Integrated Processor) development： the PEAS-I System. The PEAS-I system accepts a set of application programs written in C language, associated data set, module database, and design constraints such as chip area and power consumption. The system then generates an optimized CPU core design in the form of an HDL as well as a set of application program development tools such as a C compiler, an assembler and a simulator. Another important feature of the PEAS-I system is that the system is able to give accurate estimations of chip area and performance before the detailed design of the ASIP is completed. According to the experimental results, the PEAS-I system has been found to be highly effective and efficient for ASIP development.

This paper proposes a new method to design an optimal pipelined instructions set processor for ASIP development using a formal HW/SW codesign methodology. First, a HW/SW partioning algorithm for selecting an optimal pipelined architecture is outlined. Then, an adaptive detabase approach is presented that enables to enhance the optimality of the design through very accurate estimation of the performance of a pipelined ASIP in the HW/SW partitioning process. The experimental results show that the proposed method is effective and efficient.

A synthesizable HDL generation method for pipelined processors is proposed. By using the proposed method, data-path and control logic descriptions of a target processor is generated from a clock based instruction set specification. From the experimental results, feasibility of the proposed method is evaluated and the amount of processor design time was drastically reduced than that of conventional RT level manual design in HDL.

In a real-time system, it is required to reduce the response time to an interrupt signal, as well as the execution time of a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS). In order to satisfy this requirement, we have proposed a method of implementing some of the functionalities of an RTOS using hardware. Based on this idea, we have implemented a VLSI chip, called STRON (silicon TRON: The Realtime Operating system Nucleus), to enhance the performance of an RTOS, where the STRON chip works as a peripheral unit of any MPU. In this paper we describe the hardware architecture of the STRON chip and the performance evaluation results of the RTOS using the STRON chip. The following results were obtained. (1) The STRON chip is implemented in only about 10,000 gates when the number of each object (task, event flag, semaphore, and interrupt) is 7. (2) The task scheduler can execute within 8 clocks in a fixed period using the hardware algorithm when the number of tasks is 7. (3) Most of the basic µITRON system calls using the STRON chip can be executed in a fixed period of a few microseconds. (4) The execution time of a system call, measured by a multitask application program model, can be reduced to about one-fifth that in the case of the conventional software RTOS. (5) The total performance, including context switching, is about 2.2 times faster than that of the software RTOS. We conclude that the execution time of the part of the system call implemented by the STRON chip can almost be ignored, but the part of the interface software and context switching related to the architecture of a MPU strongly influence the total performance of an RTOS.

In this paper we describe the formal conditions to detect and resolve all kinds of pipeline data hazards and propose a scheduling algorithm for pipelined instruction set processor synthesis. The algorithm deals with multi cycle operations and tries to minimize the pipeline execution cycles under a given hardware configuration with/without hardware interlock. The main feature that makes the proposed algorithm different from existing ones is the algorithm is for estimating the performance in HW/SW partitioning, with capability of handling a module library of different FUs and dealing with multi cycle operations to be implemented in software. Experimental results of application to ASIP HW/SW codesign show that the proposed algorithm is effective and considerable pipeline execution cycle reduction rates can be achieved. The time complexity of the scheduing algorithm is of O(n2) in the worst case, where n is the number of instructions in a given basic block.