Extensible and Configurable Processors for System-on-Chip Design

Extensible, configurable, and reconfigurable processor cores mark the start of a new epoch for microprocessors, more suited to SoC design. In this chapter, we present four approaches to achieve higher levels of application-specific performance. Acceleration of a baseline RISC core with a reconfigurable co-processor can provide high performance with a very small amount of configuration data. VLIW DSP approach supporting efficient compiler technology provides a straightforward path for design space exploration and implementation from high-level language entry. An extensible RISC core provides application performance by incorporating new instruction into the instruction set, and finally, a run-time reconfigurable RISC core integrates the application-specific logic into the processor pipeline as a reconfigurable picoGA array