Loop Transformation Methodologies for Array-Oriented Memory Management

The storage requirements in data-dominant signal processing systems, whose behavior is described by arraybased, loop-organized algorithmic specifications, have an important impact on the overall energy consumption, data access latency, and chip area. Applying different loop transformations on the specification code can significantly enhance the memory management of such VLSI systems, improving all the major parameters of the design space - power, area, and performance. This paper gives a global view on existing and recently proposed memory size evaluation approaches for procedural and non-procedural specifications. Moreover, it discusses typical memory management trade-offs taken into account during the exploration of system specifications by loop transformations, that can exploit these early size evaluations.