Memory system connectivity exploration

In programmable embedded systems, the memory subsystem represents a major cost, performance and power bottleneck. To optimize the system for such different goals, the designer would like to perform Design Space Exploration, evaluating different memory modules from a memory IP library, and selecting the most promising designs. However while the memory modules are important, the rate at which the memory system can produce the data for the CPU is significantly impacted by the connectivity architecture between the memory subsystem and the CPU. Thus, it is critical go consider the connectivity architecture early in the design flow, in conjunction with the memory architecture. We present a connectivity architecture exploration approach, evaluating a wide range of cost, performance, and energy connectivity architectures. When coupled with our memory modules exploration approach, we can significantly improve the system behavior We present experiments on a set of large real-life benchmarks, showing significant performance improvements for varied cost and power characteristics, allowing the designer to tailor the performance, cost and power of the programmable embedded system