Automatic software synthesis of dataflow program: An MPEG-4 simple profile decoder case study

The MPEG reconfigurable video coding (RVC) framework is a new standard under development by MPEG that aims at providing a unified high-level specification of current MPEG video coding technologies. In this framework, a decoder is built as a configuration of video coding modules taken from the standard ldquoMPEG toolbox libraryrdquo. The elements of the library are specified by a textual description that expresses the I/O behavior of each module and by a reference software written using the CAL Actor Language. A decoder configuration is written in an XML dialect by connecting a set of CAL modules. Code generators are fundamental supports that enable the direct transformation of a high level specification to efficient hardware and software implementations. This paper presents a synthesis tool that from a CAL dataflow program generates C code and an associated SystemC model. Experimental results of the RVC Expertpsilas MPEG-4 simple profile decoder synthesis are reported. The generated code and the associated SystemC model are validated against the original CAL description which is simulated using the open dataflow environment.